Carmen
by shawnkempredemption
Summary: Even the most corrupt of demons can't manipulate people like Carmen Iver. Loved by everybody who meets her, she enchants and mystifies people with a single connection of their eyes. And she hates it. She's never been able to find a way to truly get to know people. Until she comes to Beacon Hills and meets the werewolves. (Slight AU, except for major plot points. Isaac/OC.)
1. Prologue

**PROLOGUE**

_Darling, darling, doesn't have a problem_

_ Lying to herself 'cause her liquor's top shelf_

_It's alarming honestly how charming she can be_

_Fooling everyone, telling them she's having fun_

_She says you don't want to be like me_

_Don't wanna see all the things I've seen_

_I'm dying, I'm dying_

_She says you don't want to get this way_

_Famous and dumb at an early age_

_Lying, I'm lying_

_The boys, the girls, they all like Carmen_

_She gives them butterflies, bats her cartoon eyes_

_She laughs like god, her mind's like a diamond_

_Audio tune lies, she's still shining_

_Like lightning, oh, like lightning_

* * *

**This is an excerpt from Lana del Rey's song, "Carmen" which was probably one of my biggest inspirations when thinking of this story and its main character. It's a fantastic song, so I really suggest listening to it!**


	2. Don't Panic

_Author's note: This story starts in season 2, so that basically gives you a gist of the characters who are going to be in it and it also gives you a gist of the integral plot lines. There's obviously things that happen in this fic that are supplementary to the actual story of the show because I have an OC to cater to. Hope you guys like it. :)_

**Chapter One**

_"Homes, places we've grown; all of us are done for."_

"Wake up, wake up..." Carmen mumbled to herself, trying to shake herself awake. Instead of inviting her to get out of bed, the bright morning sun was just pushing her further and further into her comforter. She didn't want to get up and she didn't want to go to school. She was sick of meeting new people. They bothered her and annoyed her. She didn't understand why they even had to be drawn to her...she never wanted this. She never wanted any of this.

"Carmen! You up yet?" She heard her older brother's voice call from downstairs. If she didn't reply he'd end up dragging her out of her room anyways. "I made us breakfast, kiddo!" She hated it when he called her that. He tried to hard to be their dad. He tried too hard to be their mom too. But she couldn't blame him for that because it wasn't his fault.

_"It's your fault." _She rubbed her temples and turned her face into her white feather pillow. Her thoughts kept attacking her and she just wished that they would stop for one moment in her life. This was supposed be a new life for her. She was out of Manhattan and away from what had happened two years ago. She was in California now and she was going to force herself to adjust to Beacon Hills whether she wanted to or not.

"If you don't come down here and eat I'm gonna be offended!" He called, making her roll her eyes. He knew he was a good cook. He wasn't going to be offended. He was just being annoying to get her out of bed.

"I'm coming, I'm coming..." She mumbled, throwing off the blankets on top of her and swinging her long legs over the side of the bed. She tied her long, strawberry blonde hair up into a bun and she trudged down the staircase to meet her brother in the kitchen. His tousled light brown hair was dusty with flour and he was wearing a dorky apron that said "KING OF THE KITCHEN" on it in blue lettering. He set down a plate with two chocolate chip pancakes in front of her and he slid her a bottle of maple syrup from across the counter before he sat down to eat his own breakfast.

"Eat. You'll feel better." He could see how groggy she was and how pale her already ivory skin looked. She always got like that when she was getting nervous. It was the ability that did it to her. Over time she had learned to control it, but when she was around him she didn't care. He was her only family now. He was the only one she trusted. "I know that you don't want to be here. You'll meet new people, Carm. You always hit it off with new people." He snickered, taking a bite of his own pancakes.

"Shut up, Troy." She mumbled, rolling her eyes. She knew it was selfish to be acting like this when he had done everything he could for her to have a normal life. Then she backtracked. Neither of them would ever have a normal life because they weren't normal to begin with. "I'm gonna hate these people. I know I'm going to hate them."

"Stop saying that. It's not true. You're not gonna hate anyone." He put his fork down and stared at her intently. "Listen, it's hard for me too. How do you think I'm going to feel, trying to drop myself into work when all of these people know each other and I don't know any of them?" He picked Beacon Hills for their relocation because he could help at their hospital but he also picked it because it was small and he knew that nobody would come looking for them here. They would be safe and it was all that mattered to him right now.

"Everything's easy for you. You'll manage." She mumbled, finishing off her pancakes. He sighed deeply and shook his head, just having the feeling that once she came back downstairs ready for school she'd be feeling a little bit better. "The pancakes were good." She said quietly, putting her plate in the dishwasher. He rolled his eyes and chuckled in thanks. Being mad at Troy for more than 15 minutes was impossible for her. Especially after all he had done to make sure that she could be as happy as possible. When their parents had died, he was one of the top surgeons in the country at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore at age 25. Everybody loved a good prodigy. And her brother was the best prodigy anybody could have ever wanted.

Carmen thought about this when she got into the shower. She thought about it for a really long time. Her brother was perfect. He was good-looking and he was a genius. He got accepted into Yale Medical School at 17. He's been on the cover of _TIME Magazine_. He's been on _The Today Show_ and on CNN. His ability made him revered by every doctor on the planet. His heightened senses just made him even better at what he loved to do.

And what did she get?

She got the ability that tricked people into loving her. Into adoring her. Into worshipping her. She hated manipulating people's emotions. She did it when she didn't even mean to. Sometimes she just projected. Why couldn't she have been the genius? Why couldn't she have had something that just let her lay low? She was the reason her parents were dead. She was the reason she and Troy were on a hit list. All because she couldn't keep it together.

"You didn't do it, you didn't do it...it's not your fault...it's not your fault..." She shook her head, repeating those words over and over to herself as the hot water from her shower stung her body. The people who killed her parents were trained to sense abilities from miles away. _Oceans_ away, even. It wasn't her fault, but all she could do was blame herself. Her breathing grew ragged as she tried to use her own ability on herself, forcing her emotions of anxiety and guilt into excitement and joy. She was thankful that it decided to work.

* * *

"Hey! I knew you'd be in a better mood by the time you got down here!" Troy laughed, seeing his sister walk down the stairs with rosy cheeks and a smile on her face. Her long hair was tied into a fishtail braid that hung by her heart-shaped face and she was wearing an olive green long-sleeved lace top with a pair of black denim shorts. "These kids are going to like you no matter how much you think they aren't. They have to." He put his hand on her shoulder and gave her a reassuring look.

"Are you giving me a ride to school today?" She ignored his previous statement, and he nodded with a faint smile. She just wanted him with her on the first day. The first morning of the first day was always bad for her but after that it was smooth sailing. He was right when he said that people were going to like her even though she thought they weren't. Her ability forced them to.

They walked outside into the warm California sun and the light was so bright that Carmen had to pull her black wayfarers out of her purse and put them on. She got into her brother's white Mercedes S63 and put her backpack and her purse on her lap. "I'll text you if I have to go into surgery, but just know that if I'm not, you can call me for anything while you're at school." He said, driving up all of the town roads like he had lived there his entire life. He had probably driven up to the school once or twice. A perfect memory was a gift that came with his ability. Yet another great thing that got bestowed upon her flawless brother but not onto her. "You're gonna have plans after school today, just trust me." He laughed as he drove into the school parking lot.

She took a deep breath in and his heightened hearing sensed her heartbeat speeding up. She balled her fists again and again to relieve some of her anxiety and she picked her stuff up before opening her brother's car door. "Have a good day at work." She said quietly as she got up out of the car.

"You have a good day at school." He tipped his sunglasses down and looked at her through his open window. "Love you, Carm. Go get 'em, sport." Again, he was trying too hard to act like their dad.

"Love you, Troy." It was probably the only truly unforced and sincere thing she had said all morning. She tried her best to blend into the large group of people making a beeline for the front door of the school. She made the conscious decision to put on a happy face for everybody. It was going to be a long day.

She took out her class schedule and walked to her homeroom right before the announcement for it came over the PA. She picked the seat that was right in the middle of the room, unconsciously choosing to be the center of attention. The room started to fill with more students over the next five minutes and they all seemed to know each other. Not once did anybody even look at her or talk to her, but that would change soon enough. Only she could manage to feel as alone as possible with her ability. Her homeroom teacher walked into the classroom and closed the door, taking a seat at her desk. "Everybody, quiet down!" She called at the room full of teenagers, which gradually silenced itself. "You probably all know me, but I see a new face in the room, so I'm going to introduce myself as Miss Caldwell." She smiled warmly at Carmen, who for the first time all day, made direct eye contact with another human. Miss Caldwell's hazel eyes turned from bored to sparkling with enthusiasm. "And what's your name, hon?"

"Carmen Iver." She replied softly, feeling the eyes of every single person in the room on her. She was used to it. That didn't mean it stopped making her skin crawl.

"Everybody, I'm going to go around the room so that you can all introduce yourself to Carmen so that she can feel more at home!" Of course that would happen. Of course. It was starting and nobody could stop it. Carmen pivoted in her seat to look at every person in the room as they spoke to her, immediately enamoring them. It would have happened sooner or later. Nobody was observant enough to notice that everybody in the room was slowly being hypnotized, except for one person. The first person she had ever encountered who picked up on it.

"I'm Stiles." He said from behind her, peering suspiciously at her face. She was definitely beautiful enough for people stare at her for a long period of time, but he just thought that something was different with the way that everybody else was looking at her. It was like they couldn't stop. There were stars in their eyes. "Uh, Stilinski. Stiles Stilinski." He had been taught to take every weird thing he saw with a grain of salt ever since he found out that Scott was a werewolf. He didn't put anything out of reach anymore. At first he thought she was a werewolf, but there was no way he had even seen or heard of a werewolf capturing people's attention like she was doing. She had to be something different. He didn't know what she was but she was definitely not completely human.

"That's a cool name." She said offhandedly, looking directly into his brown eyes. Suddenly he stopped thinking about all the different scenarios that could have possibly surrounded her. For now he was trapped in her gaze. He was drowning in her blue eyes, but he loved every second of it. He couldn't form a complete sentence in his head as long as their eyes were connected. Then she looked away and towards the next person, and he shook his head ferociously to clear his mind. Somehow he couldn't get everything out of it and somehow there was still a fog that drifted through his head.

Already finding somebody like Stiles was interesting for her, but not interesting enough. She tiredly moved on through the rest of everybody's introductions until one of the last to go spoke his name. "Isaac. Lahey." A curly-haired boy said from the corner of the room. He was quiet but she could have heard him no matter what. She thought he was gorgeous. She took in his strong jaw and high cheekbones, feeling a flutter in her own chest. She avoided looking into his eyes until the very last second. She saw blue eyes just like her own looking back at her, blinking alertly. His red lips smiled faintly at her and she smiled back at him.

His face would have perfect if not for the giant black and blue bruise settled in his eye socket.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Don't Panic" by Coldplay. _

**Alrighty, first chapter is on the books. Tell me what you guys think! :)**

**Also, the title of the chapter and the words under the chapter number are from the song that I listen to while I write the chapter. So if you want to, listening to the songs while you read is always fun to do because I think they do a good job of setting the scene for the chapter.**


	3. Seven Nation Army

**Chapter 2**

_"And the message comin' from my eyes says leave it alone."_

Carmen cleared her throat nervously as she picked up her lunch tray and searched for a place to sit. Her eyes wandered over each table, and people could only stare back at her. She had resolved to sit alone when a voice calling her name caught her attention. "Carmen! Hey, Carmen!" She flicked her head in the direction of Stiles, who was sitting at a table with another guy. It was just the two of them and she would have felt awkward interrupting their close-knit duo but she had no place else to sit and she couldn't act like she hadn't heard him. He was probably one of the only people she had seen all day who she was intrigued by. She couldn't ruin that now.

"Hi," She said quietly, setting her tray down on the table. She sat down next to Stiles and across from Scott, looking up into Scott's eyes for the first time. He had a nice head of hair and good shoulders. He was cute, but according to her, nowhere near as good-looking as Isaac from her homeroom that morning. She had barely even seen him walking around the school. It was like he blended into the walls. "It was really nice of you to invite me over here." She said, looking at Stiles. His eyes got a little dull and he blinked a couple times before his face turned completely pink.

"Uh, uh...yeah, yeah. It's not that big of a deal. It's usually just us." He stammered, fighting to get words out of his mouth. Her hold on him was almost as strong as it had been that morning. "This is Scott. Uh, he's my friend."

"Stiles, is um...I don't want to say that he's not _usually_ like this, but...yeah." Scott laughed, looking at Carmen. He could tell that something was different about her. Stiles was right. Her scent wasn't like a werewolf, though. It was sweet and intoxicating. To him, she smelled just like Allison. Something was off. Something was really, really off. "You're Carmen, right? Everybody's been going on about you like nonstop today." He shook his head. Usually if there was a new student at Beacon Hills, the word would eventually get around that there was something boring or wrong with their shiny new toy. Not with her. Nobody could say a bad thing about her.

"Yeah. Carmen Iver." She nodded, still looking at him. His expression was unfaltering. His eyes weren't changing like all of the others. First Stiles actually picking up on something and now this? What was going on with this place? She threw a wide smile out at him. Nothing. Not even close.

"So Carmen, where are you from?" Stiles was now pretty much invested in distracting himself right now. Lydia was still missing and he was still worried, but that didn't mean that he couldn't distract himself to stop freaking out about her for a few minutes.

"Manhattan." She replied, taking a bite out of her apple. Now Scott could tell that something was off with his best friend. He wasn't even being his normal, annoyingly flirtatious and goofy self. He was completely dialed in on Carmen now.

"What made your parents want to make you guys move to Beacon Hills?" Scott tried his best to get her to stop looking at Stiles so that he could test his hypothesis, and it was definitely proven now. The second she looked away from him, he blinked a few times and turned back to normal. He shook his head around and moved his neck in a circle like he usually did.

"My, um...my parents died in an accident a couple years ago." She laughed sadly, shaking her head. It was still hard for her to talk about it, but she managed to pull through this one. "I live with my older brother. He took the head surgeon job at the hospital here. He used to work at Johns Hopkins." She said quietly, looking down at her tray, which wasn't even that full to begin with. It only had an apple and a plate of fries. She didn't even feel like eating anymore.

"Oh...oh my God, I am so sorry...I'm so sorry," Scott apologized, reaching over to put his hand onto hers. The moment their skin touched, she jumped and he could feel his mind completely clearing out. It was a shock that he had never felt before. He blinked a couple of times and licked his lips, giving her a look of total confusion. He had his mouth open like he was going to say something, but he was still in so much shock that he couldn't think of anything to say. She pulled her hand away and he shook his head, clearing his throat. "What...what just happened?"

She swallowed and looked directly into his eyes. She put her hand back onto his. "Nothing, Scott. Nothing happened." Her words came to him in a distorted mess even though they would sound completely normal to anybody listening in on the conversation.

"Nothing happened. Nothing happened." He repeated, looking back at her. Seeing his best friend like this, Stiles definitely knew that Carmen wasn't normal. She had completely hypnotized Scott. He was determined to find out what made her able to do that. Or what she even was.

* * *

Carmen walked into the chemistry lab and generated a few widened eyes from her classmates. Only two classes left. She could do it. Then she'd be back home and she could watch TV then Troy would come home and he'd make dinner and everything would be fine. She stared straight into the faces of everybody looking at her, and she said two words that completely changed their demeanors. _"Stop staring."_ She said clearly, forcing them to tighten their slackened jaws and look back down at their textbooks or resume conversation with their friends. The one person who refused to stop staring at her was sitting in the back of the classroom, across from an empty seat.

He was definitely hot, but the scarf and leather jacket he was wearing made it look like he was an exchange student from Douche City. She didn't need one like him. He winked at her and beckoned her over to the empty seat with a devilish grin on his face. She reluctantly started walking towards him, but she did it slowly. Slowly enough for Isaac to walk in from the other side of the room and put his bag on the lab table. "Get another seat, dipshit. I'm working on something over here." Jackson growled at him. She could swear that she saw his eyes flash gold for a second, but she passed it off as the lights flickering.

"Sorry." Isaac mumbled, quickly picking up his books and rushing past Carmen, clearly embarrassed that he had just made an idiot out of himself and clearly upset that somehow Jackson had already gotten to her. She stuck her hand out and put it on his exposed forearm, making him instantly flick his attention towards her. His pupils dilated to twice the size of what they had been. It was like he had hearts in his eyes. She could hear his heart beating out of his chest.

"It's fine," She smiled brightly at him, reciprocating the exact same response from his face. He had a beautiful smile that did more than enough justice for his sculpted face. "I promise. You don't have to be embarrassed. You're fine, Isaac." She nodded at him before she let go of his arm and broke their gaze, completely alleviating any hints of distress he had in his mind. She sighed and went to sit across from Jackson, putting her books on the counter.

"Jackson Whittemore." He said smoothly, sliding across the table on his elbows to give her a wink. "You're Carmen, right? Carmen Iver?"

"Yeah," She replied softly, looking down at her textbook. He raised an eyebrow, feeling slightly rebuffed. It didn't matter. He wouldn't let that phase him. His ego was running high and mighty right now. Nothing could pull him back down to earth.

"Why don't you look up and show me those gorgeous eyes everybody's been going on about all day?" _Gladly. _She smirked, looking up at him. She expected his expression to go blank. She expected the grin to slide right off his face and his eyes to turn into glass orbs. They didn't. "Something wrong?" He chuckled, pouting his lips out at her.

"No, nothing." She laughed it off, knowing that something terrible was going on and she didn't like it. She wasn't used to her ability not working on people and it was starting to scare her. Granted, sometimes she wished it didn't work but in times like these she couldn't have been more thankful for it. There was something that he and Scott had to have had in common. Not two people on the same day in the same school. It was impossible.

"Anyways, seeing as you're new to town and seeing as I've been around the block a few times, I'd like to show you around." He leaned in closer to her, cocking his head to the side. "I think you'd love my car. Every girl loves taking a spin in a Porsche."

_"You're gonna have plans after school today, just trust me." _Her brother's voice rang clear in her ears. Goddammit, Troy. She hated it when he was right. He was right most of the time. She didn't want to say yes to going anywhere with Jackson, but something about him just pulled her in. And he was right. She did really love Porsches. Maybe she could use it as a way to figure out what he had in common with Scott that was throwing off her ability so much. As far as she could tell, they weren't alike at all. Jackson was Captain Douchebag and she could tell that Scott was a sweetheart. She didn't even know if they talked to each other. "You know what? That sounds like a fantastic idea." She flashed a wide grin at him, suddenly dazing him. _Bingo. _She just had to lay it on real thick with this guy and she would have her way with him. Somehow he was like Scott but now he wasn't. When she was with Scott, she had tried everything. Up until touching him, he wasn't phased. Jackson was different. He faltered.

"I'll be waiting in my car right outside the entrance after school. You can't miss it. None of these scrubs have something that nice anyways." He scoffed, rolling his eyes.

Then it happened.

A single drop of black fell onto the sheet of paper in front of him, making her widen her eyes. _Drop. Drop. Drop. _Three more black spots dripped from his nose onto his paper, and it seemed like he didn't even notice. "Jackson..." She said cautiously, knowing that what was coming from his nose couldn't have been blood.

"Yeah?" He asked, raising one of his eyebrows. He really didn't have a clue what was happening to him.

"Your nose...it's...it's bleeding." She said, not knowing how else to describe it. "Are you okay?"

He touched his nose and saw the color of the blood, immediately panicking. "I'm fine, I'm fine!" His voice cracked as he rushed out of the room, holding his nose. Mr. Harris just rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"I'll be taking that as Mr. Whittemore's cue for not coming back into the classroom for the duration of the period." He got up from his seat and locked the classroom door. He looked over at Isaac, who was leaning up against the radiator at the side of the classroom. "Mr. Lahey, since you're standing, you may take Jackson's seat across from our new student."

Isaac was more than eager to do that, and he quickly rushed to sit down. He stared at Jackson's paper for a few seconds before pushing it away in disgust. "I guess his blood must be the same color as his heart, so that proves one theory." He mumbled, rolling his eyes. Carmen laughed, catching his attention. He looked up into her eyes and he was entranced again. He thought she was the most beautiful girl he had ever laid eyes on in his entire life. She wouldn't go for him. He was a total loner. Everybody thought he was just weird. He was a grave digger, for crying out loud. No chance in hell that a girl would ever find that attractive. Plus there was his dad...Isaac had a hard enough time trusting people to begin with. He couldn't have possibly thought that it was a good idea to pursue a relationship with her.

"Our eyes are the same color." She laughed softly, making his cheeks turn pink even though he had no idea why. "Who gave you that shiner?" She asked him casually, not at all expecting him to avert her gaze like he did. He rubbed his cheekbone and shook his head, nervously scratching the back of his neck.

"It was, uh...lacrosse practice, you know. Taking one for the team." He nodded, looking down at the table. She knew he was hiding something, but she didn't want to press him too hard. She just started to worry about him. Lacrosse players always had facemasks on. There was no way for him to get a black eye from that. "Are you okay?" He asked her, even though she looked completely fine.

She snapped out of her thoughts and nodded at him. She was projecting her worry onto him. That wasn't a good sign. She liked him too much to project anything onto him. She couldn't let it keep happening, but it was like her abilities were magnified when she was around him. There were just so many things that were weird about this school...it was like she didn't even know where to start.

She had the whole year to find out.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Seven Nation Army" by The White Stripes. _

**Thank you so much to the people who left reviews/favorites/followed my story! It means a lot to me and I'm really glad that you guys are enjoying this!**_  
_


	4. No Church in the Wild

**Chapter 3**

_"What's a god to a non-believer?"_

"So how was school today?" Troy asked, setting the mashed potatoes down on the kitchen table. "Did anybody start a cult for you yet?" If anyone else had made that joke she probably would have used her ability to make them punch themselves in the face. Not with him. She laughed with him. She shook her head and took a piece of chicken to put down onto her plate.

"Did anybody at the hospital ask for your autograph?" She asked sarcastically, not expecting the sheepish grin on his face to be there when she looked back up. "You're joking. That's not true." She knew her brother was moderately famous but he was only widely-known in a couple of circles. The people he surrounded himself with were doctors. They were professionals. She hardly believed that they'd get starstruck.

"This is a small town, Carm. The doctors here...they're not used to some of the things I do, even on the first day. They do a good job, but their techniques are hardly as advanced as what I did at Johns Hopkins." She rolled her eyes. What did he think? That they had surgical robots? This town was small. It wasn't like they had a huge budget to get all of the fancy equipment her brother was used to playing with. "But you know I'll manage."

"Humblebrag much?" She raised an eyebrow at him, eating a spoonful of mashed potatoes. He grinned at her and chuckled, shaking his head. "And you were right about me having plans after school today. A guy named Jackson took me for a ride in his Porsche."

His dark eyebrows shot up and he leaned in closer, clearly interested in her story now. "Was he a douche?"

"A huge one." She nodded.

"Did you push him?" That's what they had learned to call the effect of her ability. The word "manipulate" just sounded so disgusting. He hated to admit it, but he loved when she pushed people who were just huge assholes. It made what she was doing a lot easier to swallow.

"I would have for the entire time, if I could have actually been able to do it." She mumbled, shaking her head. He almost spit out his food.

"What do you mean, _actually been able to do it_?" Her ability even worked on him, hew own brother. Even with his unbelievably strong mind and mental presence he couldn't have resisted being pushed if Carmen really wanted to do it to him. "It always works. On everybody."

"I mean, like maybe if I tried hard enough or if I touched him it would work...but then today I met this other guy...it wouldn't work on him unless I touched him. Even then I still couldn't feel him letting me in." As she was talking about it he could tell how uncomfortable it was making her feel. It was making him feel uncomfortable too. The last thing he wanted was to have her be in any danger again. She had spent the last two years migrating back and forth between relatives and trying her best to stay as low-key as possible. Once they moved to California they were finally safe. They were finally away from it all.

"Are you sure? Do you know anything about these guys?" Troy stopped eating. The smile he had on his face had completely slid off. "Was there just anything strange about them at all?"

"I had a class with Jackson today...his, um...his nose just started leaking this black stuff. It wasn't even blood. It was just black. He didn't even know it was happening." Her brother's face was going pale. "What is it?"

"Did you notice anything else?" He stared at her intently, making her see her own reflection in his brown eyes. She tried to look away, but he wouldn't let her. He knew she didn't want to talk about it, but he was going to make her. He had to keep her safe. _"CARMEN!"_

"WHAT!?" She screamed at him, covering her face with her hands. "What, Troy, what!? What the fuck do you want from me!?" She hated it when he raised his voice at her. It was never in his nature to do it before her parents died. Now he had to do it whenever he found it necessary. She hated what her parents dying had done to him.

"Carmen, just please tell me if there was anything you noticed about this kid. Just anything at all." His voice was softer now, and he looked at her apologetically. "Please."

"I saw him get angry at this other guy, Isaac...I thought his eyes just flashed gold like for a second, but it was probably just the lights flickering, it was probably—"

"Go upstairs." He said, shaking his head. He had to get to the bottom of this. He had to do some research. "Just take your food upstairs. I'll clean everything up. I just...I need some time to think. Go." He stood up and waited for her to leave. She nodded silently and got up from the table, rolling her eyes at him as she walked up the stairs. He hated doing that to her. She'd have a right to know, and she would. After he was completely sure about everything. He only had a hint of what Jackson could have been, but his hints were never wrong at guiding him in the right direction. His parents had books upon books about the supernatural. He remembered poring over them when he was younger. He tried pulling in some of the information as he paced around the room, holding his hands to his head.

_The werewolf is able to move in and out of its wolf form, and certain characteristics can be noticeable when the wolf's human form shows signs of anger. Sharp canines and glowing eyes either in the color of gold, blue, or red can be some traits easily distinguishable by the eye._

Troy tried his best to remember everything about werewolves that would have been important to him right now.

_As usually associated with beings of the supernatural, depending on the strength of the being and emotional connection to the alpha human, certain qualities of the alpha human's abilities may be cancelled out or may become completely useless. This also depends on whether or not the supernatural is willing to allow the alpha human the use of their ability._

It was just the black blood that he was missing now. He was sure that Jackson was a werewolf. There was no other explanation. "Goddammit, Troy. Think, you pathetic idiot. Think, think, think..." He mumbled to himself, hitting himself on the back of the head to try and jog his memory. It was there somewhere. He knew it was there.

_In order for werewolf status to be achieved, a human must be bitten by an alpha wolf. The alpha is usually distinguished by glowing red eyes and has control over the wolves in his pack, called his betas. In most cases, the human will accept the bite, grow into a werewolf, and accept its newfound status. Rarely, the human's body will reject the bite, causing symptoms of intense headache and nausea. Although, the most common and distinguishable characteristic of a human rejecting the werewolf bite will be black blood oozing out of the mouth, nose, and ears. Rejecting the bite may ultimately lead the victim to die._

Troy only let one word escape his lips as his eyes widened. _"Fuck."_

* * *

"Are you sure this is a good idea? Like, what if she's some sort of devil woman or enchantress and Derek wants to sacrifice her or something?" Stiles said, getting out of his car and following Scott up the hill to Derek's house. "She's a nice person, Scott. She's not bothering anybody."

"If she's a devil woman or an enchantress I think you'd want to know." Scott rolled his eyes, banging on Derek's front door. "Derek! Open up!"

The door creaked open and Derek poked his face out of the door, peering at Scott and Stiles with his green eyes. "Can I help you two princesses?" He asked sarcastically, acting like they were already bothering him.

"There's something important that we need to talk about." Scott crossed his arms over his chest. Derek raised his eyebrows, waiting for Scott to keep talking. The tension in the air was thick and Stiles and Scott couldn't help but think that the Alpha was hiding something. But Derek was always hiding something, so they just ignored it. "There's someone at school...a girl...there's _something_ wrong with her. We don't know what it is, but I don't like it."

"What, and you think I bit her?" They could see Derek getting on edge. He usually had no problem keeping his cool. He had to be keeping something a secret, but Scott would ask him about it later. Right now he just wanted to know what was up with Carmen.

"No, no, no...we need to know if there's something else out there, something that's not us. She's not a wolf, Derek. She's different."

Derek stepped out of his house and closed the door behind him, looking wistfully at it before he walked down the porch stairs and out into the forest with Scott and Stiles. "Alright, what's going on?"

"Okay, her name's Carmen Iver and she just just moved into town, and—"

"She's absolutely gorgeous, by the way." Stiles cut in, making his best friend jab him in the solar plexus. "Really hot. Amazing eyes. Really nice skin." He finished quickly, nodding at Derek who just rolled his eyes.

"Not now." He said, looking back to Derek. "And there's something about her that just makes everybody around her fall in love with her. Their whole face changes and it's like they're in a dream or something." Derek's face was starting to change. He thought that most of them had already been hunted down. He didn't think he'd ever have a problem with one because they were so scarce.

"And did it work on you?" Now he was getting serious.

"No, it didn't. But when she touched me it did. I couldn't even talk. With Stiles it was even worse. She just looked at him and he was gone." Scott could see the urgency in Derek's face as he started to shake his head. "What is it?"

"Does she have any siblings, parents...?"

"Her parents died two years ago. She just said it was an accident. She lives with her older brother. He's like a doctor or something." Scott could barely remember the details of their lunch conversation anyways. "Derek, what's going on?"

"She's an alpha human, Scott. She's a pathokinetic. She manipulates human emotion. She's not dangerous to us right now, but if she's got bad intentions she could be dangerous to everybody. Her parents are dead because they're being hunted. Just like us. Maybe not by the same people, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were true. The Argents could kill anything they see as a threat."

"Look, Derek, she's really nice." Stiles cut in again. Scott debated whether or not to hit him again, but he was right. Even though he had only talked to her for a short amount of time, he had been drawn to her. "Don't do anything to her."

"I'm not gonna do anything to her, you idiot. I can't bite her if she doesn't want the bite. And even if I lost control or something, she could put one hand on me and I'd stop. They're powerful." He turned to go back to his house, but Scott stopped him. "What is it now?"

"So what do we do about her?"

"Do whatever you want. There's no problem unless somebody comes looking for her." He went back to his house, refusing to answer anymore of Scott's stupid questions. He could figure out the answers to those on his own. He waited by the window until Scott and Stiles left in the Jeep and walked down to the basement. "You know anybody named Carmen Iver?" He asked the figure, sitting in the dark corner.

"Yeah, why?" Isaac replied, feeling his heart pound in his chest just at the mention of her name. Now that he had the bite, she wouldn't be able to stay away from him. She was the only girl who seemed to ever really notice him. She had been so kind to him. She cared enough to worry about his black eye in chemistry that day. She made the hurt go away. She stopped his pain, even if it was only for a short time. When he saw her talking to Jackson and leaving with him in his car he thought it would have been impossible. Now he had the means to get her. He had confidence oozing out of his pores. He felt so much more powerful; so much more in control of his life now. He felt his chest grow heavy at the thought of being able to have a girlfriend...somebody to finally be able to call his...somebody to care about him. A new animal was coming out inside of him the more he thought about her, and he emitted a low whine from his chest. _"I want her," _he thought to himself, closing his eyes in ecstasy just thinking about what he could have. _"I have to have her."_

"Just wondering." Derek just asked so that he could gauge his beta's reaction. And it was lot more productive than he thought it would be.

* * *

_This chapters song was "No Church in the Wild" by Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Frank Ocean. _

**Thanks again for all the support you guys have been giving me! If you have any questions about anything so far, feel free to ask in the reviews. :)**


	5. Clint Eastwood

**Chapter 4**

_"Yeah, I'm happy, I'm feeling glad; I've got sunshine in a bag. I'm useless, but not for long, the future is coming on. Finally someone let me out of my cage, now time is nothing for me cause I'm counting no age."_

"Hey, is this seat taken?" Isaac asked cooly, raising one of his eyebrows at Carmen. She was sitting at the back of the classroom in French and the seats were always pushed closer in the back of the classroom to save space, so she had her bag on the empty desk net to her. She looked up at him, smiling when her eyes met his. Somehow his eyes kept their luster but he still smiled back at her. She moved her bag from the desk and put it on the floor so that he could sit down. "Thanks." He moved the desk even closer to her, and when she looked back at him he bit his lip and gave her a confident smirk.

Something was different about him. She didn't know what it was, but he was definitely not the same person she had been sitting across from in chemistry the other day. His black eye was gone and his face was completely smooth without a single imperfection. She could feel the confidence radiating from him. She could _literally _feel the excitement and happiness pouring out of his body. If there was anything she loved about her ability, it was being able to experience somebody's happiness and sense their emotions. She thought it was a beautiful thing. "You seem different," She said, leaning back in her chair so that she could look at him.

Now with his heightened senses, he could observe her in a way that was previously unknown to him. He could notice every curl of her lip or flex of her palm. He could see the way her collarbone protruded as she took each breath in. He could hear her heartbeat and listen to its pattern. He could feel her smooth skin running against his fingertips. He could smell her perfume and her shampoo at the same time but be able to distinguish them. And as his mind ran through that option, his pupils dilated. _Her scent. _It was completely intoxicating him but he didn't care. She smelled like strawberries and chocolate. Or jasmine and oranges. He couldn't decide. It was making him go crazy. His mind was racing and his heart wouldn't stop thumping. He could feel butterflies and an insane heat growing in his stomach.

_He was losing control. _

"Madame Morrell, can I use the bathroom?" He said immediately, bouncing his knee up and down impatiently. She looked up at him from her desk and raised one of her eyebrows. He internally groaned and blew hot air out of his mouth. Carmen was getting closer to him. He could feel her hand drawing closer to the skin of his bare arm. The hairs on his forearm were beginning to stand up. Sweat was dripping down the center of his chest. He was going to lose it. "S'il vous plait, madame, puis-j'aller à la salle de bains?" He said quickly, making her eyebrows shoot up at the quickness with which he was able to rattle the words out of his mouth. She nodded and looked at him in disbelief as he ran out of the room.

Carmen just looked at the door he had run out of in total confusion. All of a sudden his confidence melted away into a feeling she could only recognize as panic, and she could sense something wrong with him. She could smell the sweat on him and his heart was nearly pounding out of his chest. She had moved her hand to touch him so that she could calm him down, but he ran out of the room before that was even possible.

In the bathroom, Isaac breathed in and out deeply, staring at himself in the mirror. He splashed cold water on his face and shook his head around, hoping that whatever made him lose control so quickly would rattle off and fall out. "God, you're such an idiot..." He mumbled to himself, running his hand through his thick, curly hair. "She's probably going to think you have a bladder infection or something...why couldn't you hold yourself together? How could she have even done that to you so quickly?" He sighed, shaking his head. Her scent still flooded his senses, driving him into madness again. When he looked up in the mirror again, his eyes were bright gold. He anxiously splashed the freezing water on his face again, making his irises return to blue once more. He looked at himself in the full-body mirror and fixed his hair, blinking at his reflection a few times. This was the new him and he loved it with every fiber of his being.

When he returned back to the classroom, he took his seat next to Carmen and blew hot air out of his mouth. "Did you have too much to drink or something?" She laughed, suddenly putting him at the ease he had been searching for. He turned back to her and flashed her a grin. He had to make something up on the spot.

"Would you believe, four bottles of Mountain Dew?" He raised an eyebrow at her, making her heart flutter. He slid his hand across her desk and touched the back of her palm with his soft fingertips. He gently drew small circles on her skin, looking up at her with an undeniable charm in his eyes. He was touching her and she wasn't pushing him. He was looking into her eyes and she wasn't pushing him. Slowly the panic of losing control settled into her chest. "Your eyes are so beautiful. I could look into them all day long." He said softly enough for only her to hear.

Now she felt like she was the one being manipulated. Her face turned pink and now she was the one being captivated by a pair of blue eyes. She could smell the laundry detergent and fabric softener on his clothes and the Old Spice body wash lingering on his skin. "Thank you." She replied in an equally quiet tone, now trying her best to push her way out of how uncomfortable this position was making her feel. She had never let anybody captivate her this much before. She had never tried to let it happen. Somehow she couldn't get him to stop looking at her, no matter how close they were. She turned her hand and closed her fingers around his own, now forcing him into submission. _"Isaac, you're really sweet. But you can stop now." _She said to him, letting go of his hand. He slowly turned to face the front of the room and tried to remember what had just happened to him.

Carmen shook her head and ran her hand through her hair in disbelief. She couldn't believe it.

Isaac was a werewolf.

* * *

"Heyyyy, Carmeeennnn..." Stiles said, sliding up next to her in the hallway. Her mind was still racing from her encounter with Isaac two periods before. She was sure he was a werewolf. Her brother had taught her to recognize the signs, and she knew that Scott and Jackson were werewolves too. They could kill her. And she knew how close Stiles was with Scott. He wasn't a werewolf, but he was best friends with one and that still scared her. She tried to shake him off, but he was quick. "Hey, are you okay?" He asked, putting his hands on her shoulder to stop her from walking.

"Stiles, I'm fine." She looked into his eyes, shaking her head. He stopped dead in his tracks and she kept on walking. She almost made it to the door of the library when her eyes met Scott's. He was leaning back in a chair right by the library doors, and she knew that he was waiting for her. He knew. About her. What she could do. He had to have. There was no other reason for him to be there. She had to confront him about what was going on. She calmed herself down and walked up to him, waiting for him to say something. He never did. "If you tell me what you know about me, then I'll let you know what I know about you."

Panic swam in his dark brown eyes and he immediately shot up, pulling her into the library with him. When they passed through the doors, it was like a threshold of silence had been created for them. They walked to the back of the library and her hands tightened onto the strap of her backpack, trying to keep it together. She was terrified. Her brother told her what they were capable of and how easy it was for them to kill. Scott pulled up a chair for her by one of the computers and he sat across from her, resting his elbows on his knees. "I won't let you touch me, Carmen. I'm lucid for this." He warned her, looking at her trembling hands.

"I won't touch you, Scott. I won't. I promise...I won't, I won't..." She kept repeating, shaking her head. Tears were welling up in her eyes and it would have been impossible for him to not see how utterly panicked and terrified she was. He couldn't ignore how scared she was. It was making his chest feel heavy.

"I know what you are, Carmen." He tried his best to push aside any feeling of sympathy he had when he said that to her. "I know how you manipulate people, how you can make them do what you want...and I know that you can't do it to me." Tears dripped from the corners of her eyes and onto her face. He couldn't treat her like this. Nobody had ever said something like that to her before. Nobody had ever made her feel this horrible. She could have always avoided it by pushing them but now she realized how much of monster she was. She controlled people; she took their freedom away...she never gave them a chance... "And your brother, is he like you?"

"No," her voice cracked as she thought about her brother being in danger. The only person in this world she cared about, the only person who would always be there for her, the only person she'd never be able to go on without—gone. "He's not like me, I swear. He's different. He can do different things...he's...he's a surgeon...he helps people, he saves their lives...he's never hurt anybody. Don't bring him into this, please." She begged him, shaking her head. She wanted to reach out to him as part of a human instinct, but she knew she couldn't.

"Why are you so scared of me?" He asked, leaning in closer to her. Her lips started trembling and all of those memories she had spent so long pushing away started coming back to her.

_"Carmen, we have to leave. We have to. It's not safe." She could feel Troy pulling her up from the ground by her arm. She could only stare at the scene in front of her. Shattered glass, blood on the walls, ashes covering the floor, and the charred remains of her mother and father on the ground in front of her. How could she leave them here, ready to just crumble and turn to dust? This place was her home...it had been her home for her entire life. She couldn't leave. He couldn't make her go. He'd have to kill her if he wanted her to go with him. "CARMEN!" Her brother yelled her name, only making her cry louder. He had never yelled at her before. He had never yelled at anyone before. It was like he wasn't even the same person. _

_"I can't...I can't..." She sobbed, shaking her head. His arms wrapped around her waist and he yanked her up from the ground, dragging her with him. She balled her fists in anger, only working to press the sharp shards of glass into her bloody palm. "TROY, LET GO OF ME!" She screamed, thrashing around. He ignored her and pulled her with him outside to his car. The fresh snow crunched beneath his feet and the cold air stung her pale face. He opened the car door and forced her to sit in the passenger seat. She fought against him as he wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and shut the door. She banged her hands up against the window, smearing it with her blood. She begged for him to let her out, but he disregarded everything. "Don't make me go, don't make me go..." She sobbed, hitting her forehead against the bloodied window._

_He got into the car and turned his key in the ignition, quickly backing out of their driveway and driving down the road to some place that would be away from here. For the first time in his life he didn't know where he was going or what he was going to do. Only one thing mattered to him right now. "I'm gonna keep you safe, Carmen. I promise." He grabbed her hand and held onto it tightly, fighting back tears of his own. "I won't let anything happen to you. I'll protect you from whatever is gonna come our way. I'll do everything I can. Nothing's going to touch you, I promise."_

_She held onto his hand and he could feel the glass scratching his skin. "I don't believe you, Troy...not after Mom and Dad, not after—" _

_"YOU JUST GOTTA FUCKING TRUST ME, CARMEN!" He yelled, choking out a sob. He kept shaking his head and the tears were pouring down his face. She couldn't believe that her brother, her perfect older brother...was losing it. He was so strong and so calm all the time. He always held together whatever was going on inside of him. He never lost control of himself. He never made bad decisions; he was always right. But now he was exploding with every emotion of anxiety and rage that a human could process. She could feel it coursing through his veins. "I can do this, I can do this..." He shook himself out of it, chewing down on his lips. He could feel the glass piercing into his skin as he held onto her hand tighter. "We can do this, Carm. I know we can. All you gotta do is trust me. Your big brother is gonna take care of everything, I promise. I'm not gonna let you down. I'm not gonna let a single person touch a hair on your head, I swear to God."_

"I'm not scared..." She mumbled almost incoherently, coming back to the real world. Her eyes were widened and she just stared blankly at Scott. "I'm not scared of you. I'm not going to let you fuck around with me. I'm more than what you're saying I am...I help people. I've never made somebody hurt themselves. I've never wanted that. Do not even for a second make me feel like I do what I do to make people feel bad. Do not make me feel like I'm a monster, Scott." Anger flooded her eyes and she tightened her jaw, grinding her teeth together. "I'm not a monster...I only push people because I can't stop it from happening. I've never had bad intentions for somebody."

He stared intently into her eyes and she stared right back at him, matching his intensity. "I trust you, Carmen." He nodded, holding out his hand to her. She stared at his hand and backed away like it was on fire. "I trust you, I swear. And I'll have your back if anything or anyone comes after you just as long as you'll have mine. Can you promise me that?" She cautiously put her hand on top of his and nodded, giving him a sad smile.

"I promise."

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Clint Eastwood" by Gorillaz, but I mostly wrote the second half to the song "Sunshine (Adiago in D Minor)" by John Murphy. It's an incredibly beautiful piece of music and it's so worth listening to when you read the second half of the chapter. _

**Thank you so much to everybody who's given me positive feedback on the story by reviewing/favoriting/following. As you guys can see, I'm having a really fun time writing this because this is the second update I've given today! More to come soon. :)**


	6. How Soon is Now?

**Chapter 5**

_"You shut your mouth. How can you say that I go about things the wrong way? I am human and I need to be loved, just like everybody else does."_

Carmen groaned into her pillow when she felt her phone buzz from under her. It had been a long few days for her and she just wanted to relax. Reluctantly she looked at her phone screen and it was a text from Stiles. _"You coming to the game?"_ It read, making her groan again. She barely even had the strength to type back a response. She pressed her index finger down on the home button of her iPhone.

"What can I do for you, Carmen?" Siri's robotic voice called out to her. Praise the Lord for modern technology.

"Text Stiles." She mumbled, hoping that her phone wouldn't mess up.

"I'm ready to text Stiles. What would you like the message to say?"

_"No."_ She didn't care very much when it came to assimilating into school culture. Even if she wanted to, she didn't need to go to lacrosse games to do that anyways. It was cold outside and she knew that if she really wanted to hang out with Lydia or Allison she could do it on her own time. Besides, she had a feeling that Erica would be there, and anywhere Erica was Carmen wished she wasn't.

"This is your message to Stiles. Are you ready to send it?"

"Yes."

"Okay, I will send your message!"

Carmen shut the screen of her phone off and nestled her face into her pillow. No more distractions. She could finally nap. She could finally have some peace and quiet...

_Knock. Knock. Knock. _"You have got to be fucking kidding me." She threw the pillow over her head. It was 7 o'clock at night. Nobody needed to go around knocking on doors now. _Knock. Knock. Knock. _"Nobody's home." She mumbled quietly, thinking that if she ignored the sound then it would go away.

"Carmen, could you let me in?" She knew that voice. And it wasn't coming from her front door. She lifted her head up to see Isaac tapping on the glass door that lead to the balcony of her bedroom. _Was she supposed to let him in? _Scott told her about what had happened at the ice rink with Derek's pack. He told her all about how Isaac was different and how he had changed into some over-confident asshole. Yes, of course she was still waiting for him and waiting for an explanation. Yes, she was still interested in him. And yes, she _wanted_ to open the door for him. But she had only known him for a few days. The connection between them had been indescribable but she had still only known him for a short amount of time. She couldn't just let him into her room. She looked up at him and saw the crisp leather jacket he was wearing. She looked up into his face and saw his rosy cheeks and red lips, with his white teeth chattering because it was so cold outside. His hands were buried deep inside his pockets and his eyes peered at her like a sad puppy. "Come on, it's cold outside!" He whined, impatiently bouncing on his heels.

She threw her head back and ran her hand through her hair before walking over to the door to let him into her room. He grinned widely at her and rubbed his hands together to warm them up. "Isaac, what the hell are you doing here?"

"What, a guy can't drop in on a pretty girl every once in a while?" He sat down on her bed, looking like he was completely comfortable. "A pretty girl _I thought I had a little bit of a thing going on with_ before—"

"Before you got taken away by the police for questioning about your father's murder?" She raised her eyebrows at him, cocking her hip to the side. "And we didn't really have a thing. You made eyes at me in French. And then you almost pissed your pants. That was it." She didn't want to act like this, but she had to. She didn't know whether or not she could trust him. She didn't like this new him. She wanted the Isaac from before the bite. She wanted the broken Isaac. She wanted the one she could fix.

"Well you definitely didn't waste any time with that." He mumbled, drawing his lips into a thin line. "Why aren't you at the game tonight?" He asked her conversationally, getting up from her bed because he could tell that it was making her uncomfortable. He pulled up a chair and turned it around, straddling the frame. She looked at him cautiously and then took a seat on her bed across from him, still eyeing him like he was about to attack her.

"I was tired." Of course her brother had to get called in for emergency surgery tonight. He'd be on call for at least another hour and a half which meant that as long as he wasn't here, Isaac would be staying. "Can you just tell me why you're really here?" She tied her strawberry blonde hair up into a ponytail and he inhaled the scent of her shampoo. He chewed down on his lip, trying to reel himself in. He was sitting in her room, right across from her. They were completely alone. He wasn't going to mess it up this time.

"I just wanted to see you, alright? Maybe to let you know that I'm not dead at the bottom of a lake or something?" He sighed, scratching the back of his head. He winced, still feeling the deep bruises from training with Derek. She looked like she was about to get up and do something about it but he raised his hand. "I'm fine, I promise."

"Another bruise from lacrosse practice?" She replied sarcastically, rolling her eyes at him. Dammit, dammit, dammit. Nothing slid past her. He couldn't just charm his way back into things like he had planned, but he'd have fun playing her game. "I know about you, Isaac. I know you're a werewolf." She said bluntly, almost shocked to see him nod.

"Yeah, I figured that much. I know what you are too, so don't try to act like I'm the only weird one in the room." He wanted to take off his jacket, but when he pulled his shoulders back he started to wince. She instinctively went over to him to help. "I'm okay, I can do it myself." She wouldn't take no for an answer. She helped him slip his arms out of the jacket and she set it down on the bed next to her.

"If your back hurts then you can just lie down on my bed, if you want." She offered him, not being able to see him in that much pain. His eyebrows shot up, but she got up from the bed and picked up his jacket with her. He stood up and was about to lie down when she opened her mouth. "But you have to take your shoes off first."

He laughed and stepped out of his sneakers, throwing himself onto her mattress. It was like he had died and gone to heaven. It was filled with her scent. He decided that she smelled like jasmine and oranges, so that's what the bed smelled like. Derek said that part of her ability was being able to draw supernatural beings in so she'd be more effective on them. The way she pulled in werewolves was by mimicking the scent of anything that they wanted. It wasn't something that she was capable of shifting, but rather something that the werewolf itself was supposed to decide upon.

She stayed quiet for a really long time, and if he didn't hear her heartbeat he would have thought that she had left the room. He turned onto his back and leaned backwards on his elbows, looking at her up and down. "You wanna talk?" He raised an eyebrow at her suggestively, shrugging his broad shoulders. She sighed and sat at the corner of the bed, trying to think of what to say. "We can start with you. Tell me about you."

"I have the feeling that you have some very specific things in mind." She crossed her arms over her chest, still refusing to look at him. Why was she acting like this? He was doing his best try get to know her...wasn't that what you were supposed to do? He wasn't even supposed to be here. Derek had left him at the house and expected him to stay there.

"Then we can just take turns. Fair?" He scooted down next to her and put his hand on her bare knee. She jumped a little bit, but she gathered herself. He just had to remind himself to keep it together. Her skin was flushed against his hand, radiating warmth. He felt her breathing a little deeper and quicker than before, but he knew it was just because she was nervous. He had the feeling that it wasn't going to work if he just forced himself onto her so he took his hand off her knee and laid on the bed upside-down, putting his feet by her pillows and his head by her thigh. "When did you find out you could push people?"

She was quiet for a second to think and then she opened her mouth. "Maybe when I was around 5 or 6. My mom kept telling me I couldn't have any ice cream before dinner, so I started crying. She...uh, she kept telling me to be quiet but I just kept screaming. And then I grabbed her hand and all she could do was stare at me. I told her what I wanted and she gave it to me. Then after I let go of her hand, it was like she couldn't remember what had just happened. The next day I tried the same thing on my dad and it worked." She laughed quietly, remembering when she still had her parents around. Derek had told Isaac that her parents had been hunted down and killed. He didn't want to start asking her questions about something she didn't want to talk about.

"Your turn." He said, lifting his arm up so that he could tap her nose with his index finger. She cracked a smile and thought of a good question. He was trusting himself to let his guard down when he was around her. He wanted to show her that he wasn't what Scott had made him out to be. He wasn't just an over-confident prick. He'd be different, and he'd be different even if it was only for her.

"Did Derek buy that leather jacket for you or did you pick it out yourself?" She didn't want to go too far and ask something overly-personal but at the same time she didn't want to ask him something that would have made her seem like she didn't care about him. He laughed and folded his hands in the middle of his torso.

"I picked it." He pushed his tongue into his cheek, looking up at her with a smirk. "In case it was hard to notice, I've got really good taste." He pointed his eyes towards her chest and she shoved his face away with her hand, making the both of them laugh. He kept a hold on her hand, placing it on the center of his chest. "Did Scott tell you to stay away from me?"

"He might have mentioned it." She rolled her eyes, making him nod with his lips drawn into a thin line. He knew that she trusted Scott. She couldn't just completely disregard his words and fall into Isaac's arms. He'd have to make her believe that he was worth it.

"And are you gonna listen to him?" He raised one of his eyebrows, running his fingers up her arm. She hated that he was nearly immune to her ability, but in some ways she loved not being able to control him.

"It was my turn to ask the question." She rebuffed him, making him smile. He flipped over and changed positions on the bed so that he was sitting next to her with his arm behind her back. She could feel it brushing up against her shirt but never touching her. "Are you spending a lot of time around Erica?"

He burst out laughing and threw his head back. She crossed her arms and looked at him with a pout on her face, expecting him to have at least been a little more mature about it. "I think that you're jealous!" He still couldn't stop laughing. She elbowed his gut and he acted like it had hurt to give her the benefit of the doubt.

"I'm not jealous. Shut up. It was just a question." She rolled her eyes, shaking her head. From the corner of her eye she could see his hand resting on the other side other side of her bed next to her hip. He had nice hands. "Answer it." She pressed on, pleading at him with her eyes. He bit his lip to quell his laughter so he could actually be serious.

"I have to. She's part of my pack now." He said calmly, still showing hints of laughter in his voice. He moved a lock of her long hair behind her shoulder and brushed his finger by her neck so that he could test himself. He took a deep breath in. He passed. "But you should know that the stuff she tries to pull on me doesn't work because I just want to be with somebody else." He said quietly, looking up at her.

He just wouldn't stop staring into her eyes. She slowly moved her hand and put it on top of his, seeing the change happen in his face. "It's your turn to ask a question." She took her hand off, and he looked back at her with a shocked expression on his face.

"Did you just push me?" Derek had told him what it would have felt like, but he wasn't prepared for it to happen so suddenly and for something so minor.

_"If you go too far with her you'll be more vulnerable to her ability. Letting your guard down means that you're letting her in to manipulate you." Derek was giving them all lessons on Carmen since she was soon to be a regular presence in their lives, and since he was afraid of biting her then his pack had to be trained to perceive her the right way and they had to be trained to know what to do. "As long as she's got you in her hold, she's the one in control, not you." Boyd and Erica both knew that these lessons were more geared to Isaac than them. _

_"You're making it sound like she's a supervillan." Isaac rolled his eyes at Derek, making his Alpha narrow his own eyes at him. "She's not like that, okay? Plus you guys have only met her maybe once? Derek hasn't even met her at all!"_

_"Aw, I think baby Issac has a little crush!" Erica laughed, pinching his cheek. He slapped her hand away and scoffed. "And how many times have you been around her, Isaac? Twice?"_

_"It doesn't matter." He mumbled. "All that matters is that you have the wrong idea about her. Get to know her a little bit first before you go making assumptions. It's annoying."_

_"We're not here to cater to what your dick thinks, Isaac!" Derek yelled in frustration, making all three of his betas jump. "I don't care how you feel about her! We're learning so that in case something goes wrong, we don't all get killed! Now listen to me!"_

"I only did it because you wouldn't stop staring at me. It was making me uncomfortable." She mumbled, turning her body towards the wall and away from him. She felt bad about doing it but she had to do it until she felt better around Isaac. She was still unsure about him and what his intentions were. Scott told her that he might just want to get to her so that he could coax her into wanting the bite from Derek. He said he'd protect her and right now the imminent danger was her being turned by Derek. The only way he'd be able to get to her was by using Isaac.

"I'm sorry." He sighed, still trying to fully clear his head. She could make him feel like he was on Cloud Nine or she could make him feel like drowning himself. He at least trusted her enough to not impose the latter on him. "So are you gonna stay away from me because of what Scott told you or not?"

"You can ask that on your next turn." She was so lucky that he was so criminally unaware of how this game worked. She didn't want to answer that question because she knew that if she said no she'd be giving Isaac a free pass to come into her room every day and she'd be giving Scott a punch to the balls for directly disregarding his warning to her. If she said yes then she'd just make Isaac upset if his intentions were actually genuine and she didn't want to hurt him, but she wanted to have Scott know that the trust he'd placed in her was genuine and meant something. "Are you coming back to school soon?"

He shrugged and ran his hand through his thick hair. He watched her look up at his hand and bite her lip, and he savored that look on her face. "Yeah, soon. Hopefully. If things go the way that they're supposed to then I'll be back soon." He was about to open his mouth when he heard the key turn in the front door of her house. "Your brother's home."

"Shit! Oh my God, you have to go, you have to go!" She pushed him to get up, and he didn't get why she was being so panicked about it.

"Carm! I'm home!" Troy called from downstairs.

"I don't understand why I have to leave!" Isaac hissed, throwing up his arms. She walked up closer to him and pressed his jacket against his chest so that it was the only thing separating them. He was at least a good five or six inches taller than she was. He had to be about 6'1". She could feel his chest rising and falling with her hands and when she looked up at him he got the burning butterfly sensation in his stomach again. She was so close to him it was making him sick with ecstasy. He wanted to reach out and touch her face to feel the skin of her cheek against his fingers and he could only imagine what it would be like to have his lips pushed up against hers. He couldn't see straight. His breaths were growing ragged. She lightly hit her hand against his chest and snapped him out of it.

"He can hear you, okay? It's part of his ability. Just go, please." She pleaded with him, trying her best to not push him. "He's really protective of me. Just as long as you're a guy he has the license to kill. Come on, go."

"Are you up there with somebody?" He called from the bottom of the stairs. He could have sworn that he heard two heartbeats. Isaac's eyebrows shot up and he knew that she wasn't lying when she said that he had good hearing.

"Can I come back?" He asked her as she opened the glass door and pushed him out.

"Sure, whatever. Just as long as he isn't here." She said quickly before she closed the door and shut the curtains. She jumped onto her bed and opened up her laptop before Troy knocked on her door. "Come in!"

"I could have sworn that I heard two heartbeats." He mumbled, looking around her room. "Why are the curtains on the door closed?" He raised an eyebrow at her.

"It's cold outside. I'd like to keep all the heat in the room and not waste money." She said back, not looking up from what she was doing on her computer. He nodded and scratched the back of his neck, just feeling like something was off.

"Alright, I'll be downstairs." He took one last look at the room before leaving and closing the door behind him. Once she heard the living room TV turn on, she breathed a sigh of relief. She got up and opened the curtains back up, still seeing Isaac standing there. She slapped her forehead and he gave a soft chuckle at her reaction.

She opened the door and stuck her face out. "What now?"

"Oh, nothing. I was just waiting here to see if you'd get naked or something." He shrugged innocently, making her roll her eyes. But she laughed, and that was enough for him.

"Goodnight, Isaac." She said, giving him a half-smile.

"Night, Carmen." He nodded at her before she closed the door and went back to sitting on her bed. He was getting somewhere.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "How Soon is Now?" by The Smiths. _

**Woo! Getting some interaction in there! I really like that a lot of you are favoriting/following the story but there aren't many reviews and I'd absolutely love to just hear from you guys about the story or if you have suggestions or questions about anything. :)**


	7. Night Time

**Chapter 6**

_"Night time, sympathize—I've been working on white lies. So I'll tell the truth, I'll give it up to you."_

"Wait, he did _what_?" Allison almost spit her water out listening to what Carmen had to tell her and Lydia. It had been two days since she had seen Isaac, and she couldn't keep it to herself. She had to tell somebody about it, partially because she didn't know what to do and partially because she just wanted the chance to talk about him. "Does Scott know about it?" Allison knew that her boyfriend would go to great lengths to make sure Isaac stayed away from Carmen. He couldn't let another person get turned by Derek.

"No, of course not. You and Lydia are the only two people I've told." She ran her hand through her hair, nervously looking out into the hallway every few seconds like she hoped Isaac would be standing out there. She didn't know how "soon" he meant when he said he was coming back and she wasn't really prepared for him to come back anyways. The Isaac that was in her room playing the question game with her a couple days ago would be entirely different from the Isaac who came back to school working to do Derek's bidding.

"You told him that he could come back to your house though, right?" Lydia was just interested in this because it was a girl problem and it was something that let her enter the normal world for at least a few minutes. Carmen looked from her to Allison and sighed guiltily, making Allison hang her head in shame.

"It just came out of my mouth. I panicked, okay? My brother was home, I didn't know how else to get him out of the room. He didn't want to leave." She remembered putting her hands on his chest and she could feel his heartbeat through his shirt and she could see the sweat starting to drip down his neck. "He's not a bad guy. He's just...he's confused, that's all. He'll stop listening to everything Derek says and then you'll see that it's not his fault."

"Well that day isn't today." Allison mumbled. She couldn't even believe Carmen was defending him. Isaac was making life hard for Scott and she hated that. He was always under so much stress and she thought that it would crush him. "You can't trust him, Carm. I know it's hard to swallow, but you can't trust him."

She just groaned and leaned back in her chair. She was about to open her mouth when Stiles came running into the library to find them. By the time he was at the table he was out of breath and he looked like he was about to pass out. "Erica...Isaac...here...back to...school..." He breathed in and out heavily, making Carmen shoot up in her chair. She grabbed a hold of Stiles's shoulders and his breathing started becoming normal again.

"What do you mean, Isaac's back to school? How did that even happen?" She wasn't ready to see him yet. She couldn't do this.

"Jackson went back on his story to my dad. He gave Isaac an alibi for the night his dad got killed, which means he's cleared to come back to school." Stiles took in a deep breath and Carmen took her hands off his shoulders. "Although, he's not cleared to be wearing that douchey leather jacket. Sheesh." She rolled her eyes and picked up her back. "Wait, where are you going?"

"The period's almost over. I have to go get my stuff for French." And French was where she was going to see Isaac. She blew hot air out of her mouth and walked out of the library, just leaving Allison and Stiles staring at her dumbfoundedly.

"Is she seriously turned on by the fact that Isaac could _murder _her!?" Stiled was bugging out right now. He was there when Scott told her to stay away from Isaac. And she said that she'd listen to him. Why was that all going down the drain now?

At her locker, Carmen took a deep breath and took her French book off her shelf and sighed, softly resting her forehead against it. "What do I do, what do I do...?" She whispered quietly, shaking her head. She wanted Isaac, but not when he was like this. Not when he wanted to kill. Not when he made her look like an idiot for caring about him. She closed her locker door and gasped in when she saw him leaning up against the lockers next to her. She dropped her book just out of jumpiness and she groaned. "Jesus Christ, Isaac!" She slapped his shoulder, bending down to pick up her book. He beat her to it and dusted it off, handing it to her.

"You just scare really easily." He shrugged, sliding her a half-smile. "Mind if I walk you to French, pretty lady?" He raised an eyebrow at her.

"I'd much rather you walk _with _me." He groaned and got off the lockers, shaking his head. Shot down again. He leaned over her and she backed up against the lockers, forcing herself to look at something other than his eyes. It would have been a lot easier if the rest of his face wasn't so nice to look at. "Has anyone ever told you that you come on just a little too strong?" She mumbled, seeing him flex the fingers in the hand he hung by his side. He leaned his head down and inhaled her scent, breathing out onto her neck so that she could feel it trickle on her skin. She squirmed uncomfortably but the grin on his face just grew.

"Am I making you uncomfortable again?" He pouted innocently, moving his hand up the inner side of her arm. She nodded vehemently, making him chuckle softly. "You're really cute when you lie to me." He was completely unfazed by how she was acting. Again her skin was flushing underneath his touch and he felt the hairs on her arm stand up.

"I'm not lying." She growled at him, making him laugh even more. "Isaac, seriously. If Scott even sees you around me he'll—"

"Oh, let me guess. He'll pounce on me and rip my throat out?" He stuck out his bottom lip and pretended to shed a tear. By now his hand had travelled all the way up to her shoulder and he ran his finger along her protruding collar bone, seeing the goosebumps he raised on her skin even though he could feel the heat building beneath her flesh. The more he tested himself and passed then more he rewarded himself by being able to touch her. She gasped in when she felt his palm on her shoulder blade. He smirked, running his hand up and down her back. He didn't want to stop. He never wanted to stop. He just felt so in control now more than ever. "You want me just as much as I want you and I don't think Scott's going to stop anything from happening. You just want him to try so it seems like you're not doing anything wrong." He rolled his eyes. "You don't even have to push people to manipulate them. You can do it without lifting a finger." Her blood was starting to boil. She couldn't believe that he'd even have the audacity to say something like that to her. What the fuck was going on with him?

Carmen slapped him across the face. Somehow he felt that when she put her hand on his face that it would feel a lot more different. "Nobody fucking talks to me that way. Stop being such a pig and grow up." He was in so much shock that he didn't even try to go after her once she started walking down the hallway. His face still stung where he could still feel her hand smacking across his cheekbone.

When Isaac got into French he sat behind her and leaned forward so that he could try to talk to her. "I'm sorry, that was rude of me." He had to make up for being an idiot somehow.

"Later." She said, making him scoot the desk up closer to her.

"Carmen, come on. I'm sorry."

"I told you, _later_."

"But you know that I'm sorry, right?"

"What part of the word 'later' does your wolf brain not fucking process?" She turned around, hissing at him. His eyes widened and he raised his hands in surrender, leaning backwards in his seat. Well that meant that she definitely wasn't going to accept his apology. For the duration of the period he tapped his pen against his notebook, racking his brain for ways that he could impress her without her slapping him across the face. Maybe the way he came onto her was a little douchey, he'd give himself that. There was a thin line between charming and creepy, and apparently he had crossed that line a little too many times. Maybe normal would probably suit him the best.

* * *

"Okay, you guys are seriously freaking me out right now." Lydia stopped walking, and Stiles and Allison looked around themselves nervously, making sure that Erica and Isaac were nowhere in sight. She wouldn't stop asking them questions and it was seriously hindering their best chance at having her not brutally killed.

"Lydia, no more questions." Carmen grabbed hold of her wrist, leading her down the stairs. "You're not gonna ask us any more questions and you're going to listen to everything we say. You got that?" Lydia's brown eyes were completely entranced and she nodded, allowing Carmen to drop her wrist.

"No more questions." Lydia repeated, still in a bit of a daze.

"How the hell does she even do that?" Jackson mumbled, shaking his head.

"No more questions for you either." Stiles wagged his finger at him. The four of them lead Lydia out of the school and into the Jeep, where they drove off to Scott's house. When they got there, everybody made sure to look behind their shoulders before they shut the front door behind them. Stiles locked up as much as he could, and Lydia raised one of her eyebrows at him. "You know...there's been break-ins." He found a chair and wedged it underneath the doorknob. "And a murder. Safety first." There'd definitely be a murder tonight if they couldn't protect Lydia from Derek and his pack.

Jackson and Lydia went upstairs to talk while Stiles, Allison, and Carmen all waited downstairs in anticipation. "So...how was everybody's day?" Stiles asked the two girls awkwardly, trying to make small talk.

"Fine." They both answered at the same time, so used to giving the same exact response every time that question was asked.

"Uh...so Carmen, do think the sight of Isaac turning into a murderous werewolf is gonna make you horny or...?" She punched his shoulder, making him recoil in pain. She could hit a lot harder than he thought. "Jeez! It was just a question!"

"He came onto me today when I was at my locker and I slapped him in the face, so no, I don't think that him turning into a murderous werewolf is going to make me horny." She rolled her eyes, sitting down on the stairs. Allison's jaw dropped.

"Wait, he tried coming on to you?" She asked, sitting down next to her. Stiles raised his hands in surrender, knowing that it wasn't his place to listen in on the conversation. Plus he didn't really want to hear Carmen talk about Isaac. He decided to go see if Scott's mom had bought any more Oreos.

"He was so_ different _from the other night. And we were up in my bedroom, completely alone. I don't know what got into him today. He just started saying all this stupid bullshit about how I was lying to myself by listening to what Scott said about staying away from him, and I was so sick of it."

"Are you lying to yourself?" Allison asked her, making her hide her face in her hands.

"Come on, not you too." She moaned, running her hand through her hair. Allison wasn't going to go down without a fight. She wanted an answer. "I don't know, okay? I don't know if I even want to be around him anymore. I have no idea what his intentions are and he keeps saying that he wants to be with me but then he comes onto me in the most disgusting way ever...I don't know what I want. I don't know if I want him or if I want to stay away from him. And it's pissing me off that I can't decide!"

Something caught Allison's eye outside the window by the door. "I think you're going to have to decide pretty soon." The two of them looked outside and saw Boyd, Erica, Isaac, and Derek all standing together looking at Scott's house. She took her crossbow out of her bag stood up, hiding behind the curtain. "Stiles!" She hissed, making him run into the room. His mouth was filled with Oreos, but he quickly swallowed them once he saw the pack outside.

"I'm gonna just do a sweep around the house to make sure there's no other ways they can get in." Carmen said, standing up from the stairs. They both nodded her and she walked around, making sure all of the windows were locked.

Meanwhile outside, Derek's pack was conferring about their strategy and they were trying to decide what to do before Scott got there. "You do whatever is necessary to kill Lydia. _Whatever is necessary_." Derek warned all three of his betas, with his eyes coming to rest on Isaac. "I mean it."

"Isaac's cutie of a girlfriend is a fighter. I heard that she slapped him across the face today." Erica laughed, making Isaac send daggers in her direction. Boyd tried to hide his laughter by disguising it as a cough.

"She's not my girlfriend." He mumbled, sticking his hands in his pockets.

"It doesn't matter. I'm sure it'll be fun seeing her bleed if she gets in my way." Isaac grabbed onto her wrist, twisting it in his grip. "Isaac, let go of me." She looked at him with panic rising in her eyes, seeing the murderous expression across his face.

"You're not going to fucking touch her." He growled, feeling the heat of his blood begin to rise as the fear in Erica shrouded her face.

"She'll do what's necessary if she gets in the way." Derek forced Isaac to let go of Erica's arm and grabbed onto his shoulders. "Don't let this get in the way of what we have to do. Lydia is a danger to everybody."

Now it was Isaac's turn to panic. He couldn't even bear the thought of Carmen being nothing but collateral damage. He had to do something. He had to find a way to just get her out of the way. "I'll go into the house first." He blurted out, making everybody turn in his direction. "There's probably a way in from the back. I'll go in and try to get them away from the door." Derek nodded in approval and Isaac ran to the back of the house, searching for a back door. He found one and picked the lock with one of his claws then retracted them once he got the door open. He had to find her before it was too late.

Carmen was still checking windows when she found the back door in the kitchen. She put the door chain in place and looked out the curtain covering the window just to make sure that nobody was coming. Before she could turn around, she felt a hand completely cover her mouth. Immediately her heart rate sped up so quickly that she thought she would have a seizure. She started crying and she tried her best to claw at the hand with her fingernails, but she felt herself being dragged backwards. She thrashed wildly against the figure, too terrified to even look up at who was doing this to her. She fought so much that the figure had to wrap its arm around her waist as she was dragged into the bathroom by the door that lead to the garage. "I'm gonna take my hand off, but you have to promise to be quiet." She was going to fucking rip his eyes out.

"ISAAC, YOU FUCKING IDIOT!" She screamed against his hand, only having it come out as muffled nonsense. He rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"Nice to know you're doing just fine." He scoffed. She wanted to bite his hand but it was so tightly clamped over her mouth that she couldn't even move her lips. "Just promise you'll be quiet, okay?" He begged her. He didn't have much time before Allison and Stiles would realize that he wasn't with the pack outside. She nodded and he took his hand off her, turning around so that he could look her in the eyes.

"The others are going to come into the house looking for Lydia, and they're going to hurt everybody protecting her. You have to stay in here so they can't find you." He put his hand on her face and used his thumb to wipe the tears that were rolling down her cheek. "After I leave you have to lock the door and shut the lights off then try to stay as calm as possible. It'll be over soon. You'll know when to come out."

"Isaac, they're my friends, I can't just let them get hurt—"

"I know that you don't trust me very much, but you have to trust me right now. I won't let anybody hurt you, I promise. The only way that can happen is if you stay in here." He put both of his hands on her face, and the urgency in his bright blue eyes was startling. "Don't turn me into a liar, Carmen. I'm begging you."

_"They're going to kill us, Carmen. They're going to watch our bodies burn like they did to Mom and Dad and then they're going to write us down as another name in their book." Troy said to her as drove, tightening his grip on the steering wheel. "You will never go back there, do you understand me? You will never go back."_

_"It's home, Troy..." Her voice cracked as she looked at him with tears in her eyes. "It's the only home we have. It's the only place we know."_

_"Not anymore." He gritted his teeth and pressed his foot on the gas pedal even more. _

"Okay," She said quietly, putting her hands on top of his. "Just don't be stupid." He leaned down and kissed her forehead, closing his eyes for a moment so that he could keep himself together.

"Wouldn't dream of it." And then he left her.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Night Time" by The xx._

**Honestly last night's episode absolutely freaked me out. I'm ecstatic that Isaac wasn't the one to die, but omfg I'm really pissed about Boyd. :( Ughhhhh, anyways please review!**


	8. Still

**Chapter 7**

_"Two feet standing on a principle. Two hands longing for each other's warmth. Cold smoke seeping out of colder throats. Darkness falling, leaves nowhere to go."_

Isaac shifted back and forth on his heels nervously as he knocked on the front door to Carmen's house. He hoped that she would be the one to open the door but he knew that if she saw him first she'd just pretend like nobody was home. Thankfully her older brother opened the door, giving Isaac a little bit of a shock. For a surgeon, Troy seemed a lot more threatening than he had originally imagined. "Um...hi, is Carmen home?" He asked quietly, toying with the paper holding together the bouquet of flowers he had in his hands.

"She's actually out with a couple of friends right now." Troy lied through his teeth. His sister was upstairs in her room and he knew she didn't want to be bothered by anybody. "But I can give those to her if you want." He offered, feeling a little bad for Isaac. He looked like somebody had just punched him in the balls.

"Thanks." He knew that she was avoiding him. He could hear her heartbeat gradually getting closer, like she was coming down the stairs. He handed Troy the flowers reluctantly, using his enhanced sight to notice that a shadow was lingering by the stairs. "Just tell her that Isaac wanted to talk. And that he's still really, _really _sorry." He sighed, shutting his eyes tightly. She hadn't talked to him in days. Ever since what happened with Lydia at Scott's house, she was even more conflicted about how she felt about him. She thought it was over and done with when he came onto her that day at school. He'd be a lot easier to hate if he hadn't purposely gone out of his way to protect her when he really shouldn't have.

"I'll do that." Troy nodded, getting a little rush of sadness in his heart when he saw the flowers in the bouquet. Pink camellias and purple hyacinths. Longing and deep apology. The kid must have really been bent out of shape. "Thanks for stopping by." He said, watching Isaac nod and turn away with his shoulders dropped. He closed the door and went over to his sister who was standing in the middle of the stairwell, obviously eavesdropping on the conversation. "What did you do to the poor guy, Carm?"

"He got me flowers?" Her voice was so quiet that it cracked at the end of her sentence. She took the bouquet from her brother and she ran up into her room because she didn't want him to see her cry. She sat on her bed and wiped the tears coming from the corners of her eyes. As she studied the flowers more intently she noticed a small piece of paper folded up in the middle of the bouquet.

_"Sorry. Again. I miss you." —Isaac_

She groaned, falling backwards onto her mattress. Why was he being so difficult to figure out? One minute he was borderline of the biggest creep in the world, then after that he wanted to murder one of her friends, but then the next moment he ended up showing her how much he cared by keeping her out of danger. A moment that was extremely hard to explain to everybody else once she got out. She'd be lying if she said she didn't think about it all the time. Every time he had touched her it was like he was forcing himself to do it just because he was nervous. There were no exceptions. Except when he had her hands on her face that night. It was so sudden that she didn't think he had time to pre-mediate his own actions.

Her brother knocked on her door and she sighed when she let him in. He was carrying a vase for the flowers but she knew that it was just an excuse for him to ask about Isaac. "So...does this guy go to school with you or is he just the neighborhood stalker?" He chuckled softly, handing her the crystal vase in his hands. She shook her head and laughed quietly as she went into her adjoining bathroom to fill the vase with water. She put it on her dresser and found a pair of scissors to cut the flower stems with.

"He goes to school with me. He's in a few of my classes." She didn't know how much she was going to tell her brother, but at the same time she hated keeping secrets from him. "And he's...um, he's one of those. You know. The kind that I can't push." She said very quietly, hoping that Troy couldn't hear her. But he always did.

"You've gotta be kidding me, Carmen." He exhaled deeply, running his hand through his hair. "What could you have possibly done to get a _werewolf _so goddamn upset over you?" She put the flowers in the vase and turned around to look at her brother.

"It's a long story. I just haven't talked to him in like a week. I'll make things better, don't worry." That fit in pretty well with the timeline of her not leaving her room other than to eat and go to school. He looked like he wanted to talk more but she looked like she didn't so he just left her room.

"By the way, I'm going into work. I gotta go do a kidney transplant. So do with that whatever you feel necessary." He said, ducking his head in the door before he closed it. Her perfect brother the surgeon. Just another day in the life of Troy Iver, professional Jesus. She nodded in his direction and laid down on her bed, trying to get her head to stop spinning. What she needed right now was some air. She opened the curtains of her glass door and she almost had a heart attack when she saw Isaac sitting on her balcony with his back against the front of it. He smiled slightly at her and gave her a little wave.

She decided to bite the bullet and go talk to him. It would probably be a lot better than talking to him at school. The way his face lit up when she came outside instead of closing the curtains was almost pitiful. He shot up and almost starting bouncing up and down on his toes because he was so excited. It was like he was a puppy. "You liked the flowers right?" She crossed one of her arms across her chest and bent her other arm upwards so that she could put her hand on the back of her neck.

"Uh, yeah. They were really nice. Thanks." She looked downwards and shuffled her feet awkwardly, suddenly making him feel like he was already doing something wrong.

"I...um...I'm sorry. You know. For being a douche." He mumbled quietly, burying his hands into his pockets so that he wouldn't be tempted to do anything with them. "I've apologized like twenty times, but you keep telling me 'later' so I just decided that now was a good later."

"I guess you're right." She nodded, biting down on her lip. She didn't realize how painfully awkward this entire thing was going to be. "I didn't really thank you properly for making me stay in the bathroom that night at Scott's. So...thanks?"

He laughed nervously. "It wasn't that much of a big deal. I mean like, I just did what I had to do." He rattled off quickly, feeling his heartbeat take off like a rocket. He didn't want her to talk about him touching her. He was embarrassed of it when he thought about it later but it was something that was spur of the moment. "You're welcome." He was just really glad that she didn't have to see him in werewolf form. He probably would have shot himself if that had happened. He didn't need her to be absolutely terrified of him.

He felt her fingers touch his and his hand started to shake. She just kept staring into his eyes and now he knew what it felt like to be the defenseless one. _"Letting your guard down means you're letting her in to manipulate you." _Derek's voice rang clear in his ears, but now it was like Isaac was completely paralyzed. She had never been the one to touch him before. And he could feel her inside his brain, twisting his emotions around. But he couldn't refuse her. "I need to know why you're doing this." Now their hands were entwined and he was in too deep to swim out. He didn't want to swim out even if he could.

"W-hy I'm doing w-what?" He stuttered, not being able to get the words out of his mouth fast enough. She was like a poison invading his brain. Just as long as he could keep this contact with her he didn't care what she did to him. He'd drown just as long as she was the one pulling him under.

"Do you only care about getting on my good side so that you can convince me it's a good idea for Derek to give me the bite? Or is it about stopping me from trusting Scott?" He was completely hypnotized in her gaze and the worst part was that he was completely aware of it. He was so completely infatuated and enchanted by her that he'd let her manipulate him however she wanted if it meant being with her.

"I can't answer that...I...I can't do it. I can't answer that." He repeated, feeling his heart beat uncontrollably fast. She could make him tell her and she only needed to increase her hold. He felt her hand on his face, caressing his cheek. He whimpered and let out a strangled pant. On the outside he was panicking but on the inside he was begging her to never let go of him.

"Isaac, tell me." It came to him as a command rather than a plea. Her thumb moved across his defined cheekbone, making him swallow a lump in his throat. Drops of sweat were coming down his forehead and was so aware of every feeling of her hand against his face that he felt like he was about to explode. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing up and he felt like there was a fire crawling up his spine.

"He wants me to...he says I should, but I can't..." He wanted to shut his eyes and crawl under a rock to die. Disobeying his alpha was a terrible decision for him to make but he couldn't hurt her. He couldn't pull her into a life that put her in even more danger. "I want somebody to care about. I can't let Derek take that away from me. I can't let him ruin your life. _I want you._" A few tears rolled out of the corner of his eye, and he had never felt so ashamed and vulnerable.

She suddenly let go of him and he breathed in like he was fighting for air even though he had been just fine the entire time. His fingers brushed by his face where her hand had been and he'd give anything just to feel like that again. He wiped the tears away from his face and used his shirt to wipe the sweat from his forehead. He thought he was pathetic for letting his guard down that much. "Okay," She said softly, nodding at him. "Okay."

"Okay, what?" He barely got the words out of his mouth before she put her hand on his face again and matched her lips up against his. He couldn't breathe. He was in shock. He was drowning. He was suffocating. He didn't care. He wrapped his arms tightly around her waist and he kissed her back. Dreaming and dreaming about this moment didn't do any justice for him. The real thing was so much better. His insides were absolutely on fire. When she pulled away he still had his closed and he craned his mouth towards her, just hoping he'd get more. He put his forehead up against hers and slowly opened his eyes, smiling when he saw hers directly across from his. "It was the flowers, wasn't it?" He said cheekily, still holding her close to him. He didn't really feel like letting go.

"Those helped." She laughed, finally feeling like she had made a decision within her control. He didn't think she had any idea what she was giving him. He had never felt wanted or needed in his entire life. He felt like nobody was going to be there to care about him. He'd never had anybody before. Carmen was somebody.

* * *

"Hey...did you, um...just between you and me of course, did you have sex with Isaac or something?" Stiles asked Carmen, putting his head over her shoulder from behind. She coughed on her iced tea and felt the oncoming urge to strangle him. She grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him down so that his face was directly next to hers. "Again, an honest question!"

"Of course I didn't have sex with him, you idiot!" She slapped the back of his head, making him wince. He sat in the chair across from her and she drummed her fingers on the table in complete annoyance. "What even made you want to ask that?"

"He's just been different lately, that's all. You know, less of a jerk-off. I assumed that you had something to do with that. You know, maybe he's less of a jerk-off because you jerked him off?" He was so blunt and unassuming with his words that it shocked her. She slapped his shoulder and he held it in pain. "Jesus! Stop with the abuse! I'm a growing boy!"

"I kissed him, that was it. And you can't tell Scott." She wagged her finger at him, gathering her books up. Stiles got up with her and she knew that trying to shake him off in the first place was a terrible idea.

"So are you guys like dating now or something...? Or is it mutually beneficial...? Does he like give you rides on his back through the woods or something?" She was really fighting the urge to hit him again. He saw her gritting his teeth and he raised his hands in surrender. "I just want to know how long my good fortune with him is gonna last, because I really like it when he isn't brooding at me with murderous intent written all over his face."

"I don't even really know what we are. We haven't exactly had the time to talk about it." She glared at him. He and Scott had been carting her around with them in their hunt for Jackson because they figured that they could use her if things got out of hand. Isaac had been to see her once since she first kissed him and he had been trying to make plans with her but she really hated being sneaky. Plus she was going everywhere with Scott and he was basically breathing down her neck. She needed to find some way to balance the two of them without losing one.

"Oh, so now you're blaming everything on me? You should be thanking me! Come on, you know what they say. Can't have too much of a good thing!" He threw his arms up, walking out into the hallway with her. "Even if that good thing is Isaac's di—" She slapped the back of his head before he could even finish his sentence. It was so hard he couldn't even see straight. He really needed to stop annoying her so much.

"Miss Iver!" She could hear a voice call her name down the length of the hallway. Shit. Harris was walking straight towards her and Stiles. She grabbed onto his collar to keep him from running away and he hoped that he'd still live to see tomorrow. "Even though I would normally excuse anybody causing Stilinski some form of physical pain, as a teacher I can't condone violence."

"Come on, Mr. Harris, I mean he was forcing my hand—"

"If I had that excuse, you would not believe how many bruises I'd give him. But it's still against school policy, so I will have to give you detention after school today. Three o'clock, in the library. As for you Stilinski, I'll find some way to punish you today." He turned on his heels and walked away. Stiles breathed a sigh of relief but Carmen tightened her grip on his shirt.

"You are so lucky that we're friends." She hissed. He was about to open his mouth to ask how she treated her enemies, but he decided against it.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Still" by Daughter._

**I really appreciate everybody's feedback and I'd love to see more of it! I finally made Isaac and Carmen kiss so now I have something to work with haha. :)**


	9. Seven Devils

**Chapter 8**

_"Holy water cannot help you now. See I've come to burn your kingdom down, and no rivers and no lakes can put the fire out."_

"Harris seriously gave you detention for slapping Stiles on the back of the head?" Isaac asked incredulously, looking at Carmen. She nodded at him and he grumbled, leaning back in his chair at their lab table. He starting bouncing his knee up and down as he pushed his tongue into his cheek to try and think of a plan. He had barely gotten any time to spend with her and he needed to talk to her about what she actually was to him and vice-versa.

"Could you stop that?" She asked him, forcing her hand down on his knee. "It's distracting and I'm taking notes." He laughed and shook his head, paying more attention to how concentrated she was on the class rather than paying attention to the class itself. She kept her hand on his knee and he found it strangely comforting.

"Oh, so I distract you?" He asked suggestively, making her giggle softly when he leaned over and doodled smiley faces on her notes. "They needed a little pizazz. Chemistry bores me." He rolled his eyes.

"Chemistry 'what's' you, Mr. Lahey?" Harris turned around from writing notes down on the board so that he could stare Isaac down.

_Got 'em. _"I said that it bores me, Mr. Harris." He shrugged innocently, leaning backwards in his seat. "I honestly don't see the point. It's a useless subject. No practical applications." He stuck out his bottom lip, drinking in the furious look on his teacher's face. From the corner of his eye he saw Carmen gnawing down on her lip out of embarrassment. She was digging her fingers into his thigh but he pretended like he couldn't feel it.

"Well then, let's see how you feel about chemistry when you have to stay in the library until 3pm today! Detention, Mr. Lahey!" He sat down at his desk, writing out a slip with Isaac's name on it. "I swear, you teenagers are all getting worse. That's the eighth detention I've had to give today."

_Eighth? _He stared at Carmen and she stared back at him with wide eyes. She looked towards the front of the classroom and saw Stiles giving her a guilty shrug. "If he's in there it means that Scott's going to be there too." She mumbled under her breath, making Isaac grit his teeth and snap his pencil in half. She put her hand over his balled fist and flattened it out so that she could calm him down. "It's not a big deal. As long as we act like nothing's going on then he's not going to even bother paying attention."

The bell rang and Isaac couldn't get out of his seat fast enough. His jaw was taut and he almost shoved Stiles out of the way so that he could get out of the classroom. "He's a little touchy right now." Carmen apologized, smoothing Stiles's flannel shirt out before she ran out the door.

"Use protection!" Stiles called after her as he mumbled to himself, feeling the bruises from her earlier beating settling into his skin.

She found Isaac out by his locker, grumbling to himself as he put his books back in. "What the hell was up with you back there? You almost pushed Stiles into oncoming traffic." She laughed. He turned to look at her and she knew what Stiles meant when he said that Isaac brooded. He had anger building in his face. "What's wrong?"

"I hate it when you have to act like you don't even know me so you can please Scott. It's pissing me off." He grumbled, slamming the door shut. "Did you just kiss me because of how pathetic I sounded when I poured my heart out to you or did you do it because you just wanted the chance to rebel?" He scoffed, rolling his blue eyes.

"I kissed you because I wanted to." She stated plainly, feeling his broad figure tower over her. "Scott and Stiles...they need me right now. Making sure that more people don't get killed is kind of important." She put her hand on his face and his expression immediately softened.

"I just...I just don't want to keep running away from Scott." He put his hand on her waist and curled his lips upward when he felt the soft fabric of her shirt underneath his fingers. "I don't want to exactly keep running away from your brother, either." He mumbled under his breath. He was never allowed to come over unless she knew for certain that Troy would be out and it really bothered him that he had to work based on somebody else's schedule.

"I promise that once this whole kanima thing blows over you can come over for dinner." She laughed, seeing him crack a smile. She stroked his face with his thumb and nearly sent him into a tailspin. He didn't think that he'd ever get used to that feeling. "And then we don't have to sneak around anymore."

"Good," He grinned devilishly, putting his hand on the small of her back and pulling her into him. "Because I'm really looking forward to being able to do that in public." She saw Stiles walking into the library along with Scott, Jackson, Allison, Matt, and Erica and she smacked her forehead. "What is it?" He asked, looking over his shoulder. The hallway was pretty much empty now, as everyone had pretty much left for the day.

"Erica got detention too, I guess." She mumbled under her breath. He loved how jealous she got. "It's gonna be one big party." She moved to walk towards the library, but he still kept his arm on her and he smirked when she raised an eyebrow at him.

"Kiss me," He murmured, tipping her chin up with his finger. She didn't even need to answer because he had already put his open mouth onto hers. The hand she had on his face moved up so that she could run her fingers through his hair and a low growl came from his chest. She broke the kiss and started laughing at him. "What?" He asked, licking his lips.

"Did you just growl at me?" She couldn't stop laughing and his cheeks turned pink at the very thought of it. He scratched the back of his neck nervously and opened his mouth like he was going to respond, but he moved his eyebrows back and forth and decided to not embarrass himself any further.

"We should get going." He said, turning on his heels so that he could walk towards the library. She rolled her eyes and followed him down the hallway. He opened the library door for her and leaned on the doorframe as she walked by him, poking his tongue in his cheek as he looked down at her hips. When he looked back up, his eyes met Scott's and he just chuckled and smirked. He didn't have to let Scott know that he and Carmen were in a mutual relationship, but he did really love making it look one-sided to make him angry. "Sit in that one." He looked over at the seat diagonally across from him as they went to sit at an empty table together. She put her bag on the table and they both sat down at the same time.

She put her long legs up on the seat across from her and she opened up the book she had to read for English. _The Lord of the Flies. _She absolutely hated what happened in the book but she thought the way it was written was the most beautiful thing. Suddenly she felt Issac's hands around her ankles as he lifted her legs up and put them on his lap with a half-smile playing on his face. She looked back down at her book but she felt Isaac absentmindedly running his hand up and down her bare leg as he scribbled things down in his notebook. "Can I help you?" He looked up from what he was doing and shook his head, continuing his work. He kept his hand against her skin, sort of like it was just soothing him. Thank God she had decided to shave her legs that day.

"You two, over there." Harris said to Scott and Stiles, pointing to the empty table next to Carmen and Isaac. Quicker than he could even think about it she swung her legs off his lap and he rolled his eyes and shook his head.

Scott eyed Isaac suspiciously, and Carmen pretended not to notice. "Hey, do you think anything's going on between them?" He asked Stiles, sitting down at the table.

Stiles felt a little lightheaded but he didn't want to be caught in the middle of everything so he just shook his head. "Uh...no...why would you think that?" He asked, playing it as safely as possible. He didn't want to betray Carmen's trust in him and he was kind of proud of the fact that he was the only person she'd told about it. She didn't want to tell Allison because she knew that there was no keeping secrets from Scott and she knew that Lydia would have opened up her big mouth anyways.

"I don't know...I just feel like something's up. I've just seen them talking a lot, and Isaac keeps giving her all these creepy looks." He shuddered, rolling his shoulders back.

"Well, has it maybe occurred to you that Isaac's just giving her creepy looks because he's creepy?" Stiles offered, gulping and hiding his face when he saw Isaac turn around and pierce him with his blue eyes. "Right, right...super wolf hearing. Forgot about that."

"I just don't want Carmen to get hurt, you know? She's my friend and I have to protect her. Isaac's dangerous." He sighed, looking over at them again. He seemed preoccupied with whatever homework he was doing and she was paying close attention to her book. Everything seemed normal. They just looked like two people sitting at a table together. They weren't even sitting close together. Then the pen Isaac was twirling in between his fingers flipped up and landed on the table. He went to pick it back up, but so did Carmen. Their hands touched and they smiled at each other. Now he definitely knew. "You've gotta be kidding me."

"So are you sure that I can't come over after this is done?" He asked her, looking up from his French homework.

"Not unless Troy gets called in. He's off today." She felt bad that he was so disappointed, but her brother was just too protective of her after everything that had happened. She had to ease Isaac into the relationship that she and her brother had and it wasn't going to be very easy. "I'm sorry." She trailed off as she noticed Jackson over at the table with Allison and Matt. He was holding his head in agony and his whole body was shaking. She thought he was going to pass out.

"What's his problem?" Isaac mumbled, making her step down on his foot. He inhaled sharply, reaching down to rub his toes. When she tried to hurt him it didn't usually work but this time was different.

"He's panicking," She said quietly, looking over at Scott. "I can feel him panicking. His heart rate is going out of control, he can barely even breathe, he's sweating out of every single pore, and the pheromones he's secreting...it's fear." She read him like a book, making Isaac's jaw drop. All part of the ability.

"You can _smell _fear?" He asked her, leaning in on his elbows and raising an eyebrow. Mr. Harris left the room and Carmen took this as her cue to run over to Scott and Stiles. They were talking to Erica, but she decided that she'd suck it up.

"He's going to turn any minute." She said, grabbing onto Scott's arm. "I can just feel it. Something's not right." Isaac's temper flared up when he saw her touch Scott's arm. He couldn't believe he was getting this possessive. It was just an instinct that kicked in and he didn't know where it came from. Jackson and Harris came back into the room, and it was plain to see that something was very wrong with Jackson. Now the sweat was pouring off his face and even Scott, Erica, and Isaac could smell the pheromones coming off him. "What do we do?"

"Scott McCall to the principal's office. Scott McCall to the principal's office." Carmen had a really bad feeling about all of this timing.

When Harris put his bag together everybody thought this meant that they could leave, but instead he gestured to the carts of books and said that they couldn't leave until they were done with the re-shelving. Isaac bolted up from his seat and pulled Carmen and a cart of books with him. "The buddy system is more effective." Once he had her with him the feeling of jealousy subsided and he felt normal again. "What's the plan for when Jackson pulls a Green Goblin on us?" He leaned over the cart, staring at her with his huge blue eyes.

"How did you—"

"It wasn't a really big surprise that such a snake of a person could be an actual snake, you know?" He shrugged, picking up a book and fitting it on a shelf where it clearly didn't belong. "Anyways, what are we gonna do?"

"I don't know. Scott probably has a plan." She said truthfully, taking back the book he had put on the shelf. She looked at the spine and went to find where it was supposed to go. He watched her walk away and sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose. _Of course Scott had a plan._ "Shelley, Shelley, Shelley..." She murmured quietly under her breath, searching for the right place for her to put _Frankenstein._ She slid it in between another copy of the book and a bookend, satisfied with the fact that putting something in the right place didn't take very long.

All of a sudden, she heard a crash on the other side around the room. Just as a human instinct she tried to look for it but Isaac had his arms around her and had her down on the ground before she could even attempt to find out what was going on. "Just stay behind me." He held her hand tightly and she could see his eyes glowing gold.

"ISAAC! ERICA!" Scott roared out to them for help. Isaac's canines jutted out and he ran towards the sound, leaving Carmen to fend for herself. She heard Erica scream and she balled her fists tightly, hoping she wouldn't hear Isaac next. She saw tables being flipped over and lights being shattered, but she couldn't see Stiles or Allison anywhere. Then the most blood-curdling sound filled her ears. A combination between a hiss and a screech...she couldn't breathe...

_"Troy, you know what to do with her. Take her into the saferoom. We'll try to get out but—" Troy didn't need to hear his father finish his sentence for him to pick his little sister up and bring her down into the basement where he moved a bookshelf out of the way and opened up the saferoom. She hid her face into his chest and shut her eyes tightly, trying to block out everything, but it was impossible. _

_The sound of a deafening screech and cries filled her ears. It sounded like an animal dying. Or a human being burned alive. _

"No, no, no, no, no, no..." She rocked herself back and forth, covering her ears with her hands. She felt somebody's warm arms around her and a calming heartbeat. Isaac rocked back and forth with her, resting his face on top of her head.

"Shhh...it's okay, it's over..." He sweetly whispered into her ear, rubbing his hand up and down her back. "It's over, it's all over...I'm here, and I'm not going to leave..." She picked her face up from his chest and her eyes caught the clock. It was 3:15 when she went to put the book back. Now it was 5:38. How could nearly two and a half hours have passed like that?

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Seven Devils" by Florence + the Machine. _

**I'm going on such a writing spree omfg. By the way, I had some free time on my hands and I made an Isaac fanmix that you can check out by going to my profile "ljkaram" on 8tracks. The fanmix is called "Spectrum" and it just basically deals with the different range of emotions that Isaac's had. He's a pretty complex character and I think that's why I love him so much. (And yes, I edited the cover picture myself too haha). Thanks for reading! :)**


	10. Flume

**Chapter 9**

_"I am my mother on the wall; with us all. I move in water shore to shore, nothing's more. _

"I got you something to drink." Isaac said quietly, setting down a mug of hot tea on her nightstand. He had stayed outside her balcony door for that entire night just to make sure that she'd be fine after what happened in the library and he came inside when he heard her brother's car go down the driveway. She smiled faintly and played with her purple and blue comforter.

"Thank you," Her voice was barely above a whisper and her blue eyes were ringed in red. It was just like the morning of her first day of school all over again. She decided to drink some of the tea he made for her and it was hot but not hot enough so that it would burn her throat. And it was sweet. "How much sugar did you put in this?" She asked him, making him immediately pivot from looking at the things in her room so that he could look at her.

Panic covered his face and he flew to her bedside. "Did I put too much in? I'm really sorry. I can go make you another cup if you want, I swear it's not—" He was so ready to take the mug out of her hands that he was almost shocked when she put it to her lips to take another sip in.

"It's perfect." She laughed, making him breathe a sigh of relief. "I always put too much sugar in."

His lips broke out into a smile and he sat down on her bed. "My mom used to make me tea a lot when I got sick as a kid. She'd have to put so much sugar in it otherwise I'd never drink it." The two of them laughed and Carmen was already feeling a lot better than she had hoped.

"I...um, about last night..." She put the mug back on her nightstand and scooted up closer to him. She looked into his eyes and she could tell that he was surprised she was giving him an answer anyways. "I don't normally have those...episodes. I'm sorry." He started to shake his head and he sandwiched her hands in between his.

"It's not your fault. You shouldn't apologize." He knew what it felt like to go into fits like that. He wanted to tell her that he could understand what she was going through because he had his own stories, but he was still too scared to let her know. He was still too scared for anybody to know.

"I don't know, I just guess I thought they went away, you know?" She looked down at their hands while he still couldn't take his eyes off her. "I hadn't had one for almost a year, and then yesterday happened." Getting over what she had been through as fast as she wanted to get through it was like shoving your own fingers down your throat to make yourself vomit. Traumatic and painful.

"If you want to go back to sleep then you can. It's still early." He looked over at the clock. 8:12. "I'll be here when you wake up. It's not like I have anywhere else to go." He laughed. She decided that she'd take him up on his offer and sleep for a couple more hours. He got up from her bed and decided that he'd continue looking around at her stuff to occupy himself. He started by going into the bathroom and he felt his nose tickle when he moved his face by her cabinet, so he opened it up and became mystified with all the different bottles and tubes she had. She had a couple different types of perfume but one of them was half-empty and the cap was off so he figured that it was the one she always wore. He took a sniff of it and to his surprise it was a scent he was already familiar with. _Orange and jasmine._ He could have chosen for her scent to be anything he wanted it to be and it ended up being what she actually smelled like. He chuckled softly and closed the cabinet, leaving the bathroom.

He walked towards her window seat and became fascinated when a blue and white record player caught his eye. There was so much about her that he didn't know but he loved learning about her this way. It was like she was a book. He sifted through her stacks of records and found a lot of old Bob Dylan and Beatles records but there was a hefty amount of classical music, especially from movie soundtracks. Closer to the top of the stack were a couple Jay-Z vinyls and about four or five Kanye West albums. He didn't take her for somebody who enjoyed listening to hip-hop a lot. The record cover on the top was for the one that was still in the player. It was the soundtrack to a movie that was in French. Thankfully French was one of his best subjects. _Le Fabuleux Destin D'Amélie Poulin. _The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain. He sat on the ground with the cover in his hand and he spun it around by the corners. He had never seen the movie but he'd probably end up seeing it someday.

He checked the track that was playing on the player and it was close to the beginning. He guessed that it was probably four or five. "Comptine D'Un Autre Été—L'Après Midi," He whispered under his breath, picking out the title that he thought reminded him more of her. Track 5 was "La Noyée" and that translated into "the drowned". The other one was "The Rhyme of Another Summer Afternoon" and he wanted to believe that she would rather listen to that than the other one. He put the records and the player back and he resumed his tour. He looked at the pictures on her dresser and he noticed that most of them were just of her and her brother, and all but about three of them were fairly recent. There were two pictures that showed Carmen with Troy and he had in a degree in his hand from Princeton. He still had acne on his face, and she was just a little kid. The other picture was more normal and it was of her on his shoulders on a family trip to Disney Land. It was easy to see how close-knit they were and now Isaac understood why she was so scared of disappointing her brother or why she listened to almost everything he said. He was the closest thing she even had to a parent.

Then he looked at the picture he had been saving for last. It was a family picture on Christmas Day. There was a huge Christmas tree in the background and he could just make out the corner of a baby grand piano. He suddenly felt a pang of jealousy within his heart, and he was taken aback to even have experienced it. He didn't have anybody anymore. Not his older brother. Not his mother. Not his father. He should have been thinking about the fact that he and Carmen were a lot more alike than he had originally thought but he could only feel sadness on his mind when he saw how picture-perfect her family looked. Her father was a good-looking guy and he had dark brown hair and a beard paired with striking blue eyes. Her mother was beautiful and he thought Carmen looked a lot like her. They both had the same strawberry-blonde hair and blue eyes with high cheekbones and ivory skin. Her family looked like it belonged together.

Isaac didn't belong to anything.

He set the picture back down and wiped the tears forming at the corners of his eyes. He sniffed his nose and rolled his shoulders back, trying to shake off that disgusting feeling that he had the pit of his stomach. He knew that no matter how much somebody had lost they would have never lost as much as he did. He felt sick to his stomach. He went outside onto the balcony so that he could try to get some fresh air to clear his head. _  
_

Him opening the door roused Carmen from her nap and she yawned, deciding that it was a good time to get up. She looked around for Isaac and saw him leaning over the banister on the balcony. She got out of her bed and walked to him, putting her hand on his broad shoulder. "Hey, are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine." He nodded, turning towards her. "Did you want to talk about something?" His eyes had been watering she knew it. She had the feeling that he'd get defensive if she asked him if he'd been crying so she decided to leave it alone. She shook her head and rested her cheek on his shoulder, trying to figure out what he was looking at. Her neighbor's two dogs had just decided to jump into their pool for a swim and in the next house over there were a couple of kids running around in their yard while their mother watched them.

"I miss that." She said quietly, making him turn his head in her direction. She just sighed and wrapped her hands tighter around his arm. "I know it's stupid, but I just miss it." She had always been by herself when she was little. Troy was off doing what Troy did best and that was impressing people. Her parents were just always so busy to spend a huge amount of time with her, but she found ways to preoccupy herself.

"I don't think it's stupid." He could almost feel the sadness and longing in her voice when she said that and he suddenly felt selfish for feeling jealous of her when he looked at her pictures. His pain had been going on for years and it was a gradual process. Hers had happened all at once and it only happened a short time ago. Everybody was different.

"I think my brother does." He could feel her shaking as soon as the words came out of her mouth and she took a deep breath in, trying to hold in her tears. She loved her older brother with all of her heart but sometimes she just felt like he was asking too much of her. Her parents had stopped believing that she'd be like him from an early age. But she didn't have to be like him to get accepted by her family. She was a different kind of good and she was just as good as her brother was. He just expected her to be like him and sometimes she felt like he treated her like she was supposed to be him.

"Then I guess that's where our paths diverged." Isaac loved seeing the smile on her face after he said that and he could feel his heart swelling. He was about to say something else but he felt his phone buzz in his pocket.

**Boyd -** _Derek's looking for you. Says you didn't come home last night. Where are you?_

**Isaac -** _With Carmen. Not a big deal. _

**Boyd - **_Don't be an idiot. __Pack meeting. _

Isaac groaned and put his phone back into his pocket. "I gotta go. Pack thing." Her lips drew into a thin line and she nodded. Asking him to stay probably would have been selfish but she didn't need him to survive so it wasn't like she'd die if he wasn't there. "I'll just text you or something."

"Okay." He kissed her cheek and grinned at her as he hopped over her balcony bannister and ran to Derek's.

* * *

"Get your stuff together! We're going shopping!" Lydia's voice rang through Allison's ears as she entered her room without knocking. Allison expected nothing less. "And I invited Carmen so we'll have some company. And hopefully something juicy about Isaac." Carmen was like a shiny new toy to Lydia and her relationship just gave Lydia a chance to escape all the terrible things she had been going through.

Allison's mother was walking by the open door when she overheard their conversation. "Who's Carmen?" She asked conversationally, ignoring the glare that her daughter sent her.

"Carmen Iver. She just moved here from New York or something. She goes to school with us." Lydia rattled off, not noticing the nervous way Allison was reacting. What turned into an excuse to act like an actual mother had turned into something that might have actually been valuable. _Iver. _It just sounded familiar to her. Mrs. Argent nodded and went into her bedroom to take out a small black notebook in her husband's nightstand with the Argent family crest on it. It was Kate's record book.

Eventually Victoria flipped her way through the pages until she found what she wanted. She had read through the register a fair amount of times so she wasn't surprised to confirm her suspicions.

_Name: Sarah Iver_

_Species: Alpha human_

_Cause of death: Fire_

_Name: Andrew Iver_

_Species: Alpha human_

_Cause of death: Fire_

_Offspring: 2 alpha human children, one male, one female; whereabouts unknown._

Victoria Argent smiled to herself. Beacon Hills must have been a magnet for the supernatural because it did an incredible job of picking them up from everywhere. She picked her phone up and dialed the number of someone who would have been ecstatic to hear the news. "Gerard? It's Victoria. Today is your lucky day."

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Flume" by Bon Iver. Also, the first time I listened to this song I was a little confused by the meaning of the song but after reading up on it and thinking about it I think that this song is about remembering people who aren't there anymore. Like "my mother on the wall" is supposed to represent a picture of somebody who's gone but is being remembered. _

**Thank goodness I got to the drama haha. I thought the story was getting a little boring. I just have this infatuation with writing backstories and paying attention to detail so just as a word of caution I don't put any seemingly pointless details in there by accident. heh. **


	11. Secret

**Chapter 10**

_"Why do you smile like you've been told a secret? Now you're telling lies 'cause you have sworn to keep it. But no one keeps a secret. No one keeps a secret."_

"You're coming to my practice after school today, right?" Issac leaned up against the lockers by Carmen, picking at his thumbnail absentmindedly. He pursed his lips as he waited for a response but she only scrunched her face up. He groaned and hit his head against the metal door. "We already had this talk, okay? You're allowed to be seen in public with me."

"I'm not worried about that, I swear. It's Jackson, that's all." She shrugged, slinging her backpack over her shoulder as she started to walk towards her next class. Well, that was obviously a lie. That day at the library she hadn't been scared of the kanima. The only thing she was scared of was herself.

"Oh yeah, you're worried about Jackson when there's three werewolves out on the field with him. Makes sense." He scoffed, following closely behind her. "Seriously, if you don't tell Scott then I'm just going to do it myself. Like come on, you told Stiles. _Stiles._" He was still in disbelief that there was a point where he was the only one on the outside who'd actually known anything to begin with. "I don't understand why it's such a big deal that we keep it a secret, that's all."

"Because I don't want to make him feel like I disappointed him." He found that being afraid of disappointing people was a common theme with her. He was going to say something rude but he bit his tongue. "You can't tell him, Isaac. Please."

"I still don't understand why! Jesus Christ, he's the one dating Argent's daughter! I like think that we're at least a little easier to swallow." He scoffed, shaking his head.

"If I'm friends with him and I'm afraid of how he'll react, how do you think he's going to be when you tell him? I'm easing into it, I told you. It's covered. I don't really think he wants to hear me say, o_h hey, Scott. You know Isaac, the guy you really don't like and told me to stay from? Yeah, he's my boyfriend. I make out with him on the weekends._" She said sarcastically. He ignored her remark and shook his head. It was a lot more than just on the weekends.

"And how much progress have you made so far?"

"The other day at lunch I was like, 'hey Isaac is pretty cute' and he didn't really think anything of it. So we're getting somewhere." She shrugged guiltily, expecting him to get upset. Instead he burst out laughing so loudly that people were starting to turn their heads. She gave him a minute to stop and actually react to what she had said, but instead his spurt of laughter had turned into a giggle fit and his eyes were starting to water. "Isaac, calm down." She mumbled, staring at him with a bewildered expression on his face. The more time passed the more he kept on laughing. She grabbed onto his wrist._ "Stop it."_

He immediately stopped laughing and he coughed a little bit. She let go out of his wrist and looked at him apologetically. "The worst part about that is that you didn't even say 'hey, Scott look at Isaac he's really hot.' or 'Isaac is looking absolutely bangin' today, if you know what I mean.' or 'Did you know that Isaac is a really good kisser?' Nope. You said, 'hey Isaac is pretty cute' instead." He almost started to laugh again but he didn't feel like getting pushed for the second time so he reeled himself in.

"Aw, but look at you! You're cute, right?" She pinched his cheek and he rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, I'm a goddamn princess." He mumbled, making her smile fade away.

"It'll be soon, I promise. There's just going to have to be a right time." They were nearing the English classroom and she'd just be thankful to get away from having Isaac ask her about what she was going to do about Scott.

They got to the door of the classroom and he stopped walking and started to play with her hands. "I'm seeing you at the field after school, right?" He batted his eyelashes at her sweetly, sticking out his bottom lip. There was just something about his face that made you think he was as saintly and as innocent as they came, but there was so much underneath the surface that you'd never be able to see unless he let you in about it.

"Okay, okay. I'll go." She sighed, making him grin with excitement. She stood on the tips of her toes and kissed his cheek before opening the door to her English class and slipping inside. She was about to take her seat when her teacher called her name. "What's up?" She asked, still holding her backpack against her shoulder.

"The office wants to see you for a quick minute." She said, looking out towards the door. Carmen was confused but it couldn't have been about anything all that serious so she went to the office. Allison's mom was working the front desk and she smiled at her.

"Hi, Mrs. Argent." She shuffled her foot awkwardly, looking at the woman who was bent on murdering her friends and her boyfriend. Obviously things were _so _comfortable between them. "Did the principal want to see me?"

"Yes, yes. Go right in." She nodded, directly avoiding Carmen's eyes as she looked her over. It was like she was studying her.

Carmen entered Gerard's office and he gestured for her to take a seat. "Miss Iver! Sorry to pull you out of class." He had a file with her last name on it out on his desk and he flipped through it as she rocked from side to side in the chair. The Argents made her so uncomfortable. She didn't know if Allison had gotten dropped on her head as a toddler but she didn't have what they did.

"Um...am I in trouble for something?" She started playing with her fingers. He shook his head vehemently and leaned forward in his chair.

"Actually the opposite, Carmen. Since we're both new here I just thought that I'd ask you how you manage to do it." He shrugged plainly, reciprocating a confused look from her. "I mean, everybody here just seems to adore you. You've already managed to find your own group of friends and Mrs. Argent has pointed out to me that you already have a boyfriend!"

"No, no, no, no I don't have a boyfriend." She insisted nervously, tapping her foot on the ground. Something was wrong. She could just feel it in the air. He raised an eyebrow at her but she just kept shaking her head.

"Really? Mrs. Argent watches security footage all day long, and she's noticed that you seem to have become involved with a certain Isaac Lahey. I don't want to go into specifics, but I can assure you that it's very convincing." She gnawed down on her lip and dug her nails into her own leg. She knew it was a terrible idea to make out with him in the upper level computer lab last week. They had to be more careful. Sometimes she didn't know how Scott and Allison managed to sneak around so well. "You don't have to be embarrassed. I know how hard it must be considering the suspicious circumstances around which his father was murdered."

"He had nothing to do with that." She grit her teeth, trying to keep herself calm by taking in deep breaths. After was she had been through this should have been the easiest thing in the world and yet somehow she couldn't help but feel scared.

"I just want to know that my granddaughter is spending time around the right people. I know how good of friends you two are and I'm just making sure that she's as safe as possible. I'm only a concerned grandfather." He shrugged, folding his hands on his desk.

_And a psycho werewolf hunter. _"I care about Allison. I'd never let anybody hurt her." It seemed more and more that the people Allison would need the most protection against was her own family. "I'm that way about all of my friends." She made sure that he understood she was talking about Scott and Isaac.

"You know, it's fascinating, really. Your background seems absolutely unfathomable when compared to your incredible social skills. Your parents died in a house fire, am I correct?" He asked, putting his glasses back on as he flipped back through her file.

She felt like she was about to throw up. This was making her sick. Nobody had ever mentioned her parents that bluntly before. "Yes. They did. Two years ago."

"And your brother is a brilliant, brilliant surgeon. So young, too. It must have been difficult always having to grow up in his shadow. He must really care about you if he was so willing to leave the top surgical position at one of the best hospitals in the country to come to Beacon Hills." He was testing her. Panic was rising in her chest.

"It was difficult for me in the city. I didn't really have anybody so he decided to take care of me." She shrugged, trying to regain her composure. "I think family is important. Don't you, Mr. Argent?" She asked, staring into his eyes as she smiled. He was momentarily dazed and he nodded at her. "Now tell me I can leave." She smiled even wider, making clouds swim before Gerard's eyes.

"That'll be all. You can go now, Miss Iver." She couldn't get out of the office fast enough. She rushed past Mrs. Argent and ran into the bathroom to splash cold water on her face. Her hands refused to stop shaking. They wouldn't hurt her this time around. She had something that she hadn't had before. She had protection, and hopefully that would be enough.

* * *

"Did you invite Carmen?" Scott raised one of his eyebrows at Stiles, looking over at his friend who was sitting on the bleachers. He could see her bobbing her knee up and down like she was in a hurry to do something, but he knew that if she needed to do something then she wouldn't have been at the practice to begin with.

Stiles shook his head and finished adjusting his chest pads. "Nope. In case you haven't realized, I've got a different strawberry blonde on my radar."

"Wait, then who invited her to come watch?" He asked, looking around the field. Isaac's wicked grin caught his eye. Scott grumbled to himself and shook his head, twirling his lacrosse stick in his hands. "I have to talk to her about him. It's getting ridiculous. I told her to stay away from him."

"The heart wants what the heart wants." Stiles shrugged, making his best friend gape at him. He realized that he had basically just blown the entire thing. He quickly tried to backtrack. "Uh, because you know if Isaac just keeps trying to woo her and stuff it's not her fault if she wants to date him, you know?" He said uneasily. Scott wasn't buying it.

"I still don't like him, okay? She's my friend. I told her I'd protect her. That's what I was doing when I told her to stay away from him." He couldn't believe this. He looked over at Isaac again, and it was completely obvious that he invited Carmen by the way he was looking at her. She was looking down at her phone but he was still staring at her with a cocky smile on his face, as if to let the world know that she was his. And Scott knew that exact look because it was the same one he would give Allison.

"You know, maybe he's not all that bad." Stiles shrugged, making Scott stare at him with wide eyes. He sighed, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Are you an idiot!? He's only doing it so he can bring her to Derek so that he can just keep building his pack!" Scott grabbed his shoulders, making the rest of the team stare at them. He cleared his throat nervously and let go of his best friend.

"But you don't know that for sure, do you? Maybe Isaac needs somebody. Just cut him a break. His dad used to lock him in a freezer, for the love of God." Stiles owed it to Carmen to try his best to get Scott to listen to some reason. She had confided in him and he didn't plan to lose that privilege. He'd gotten himself into this mess and now he was obligated to get himself out of it. Even if Isaac did scare him most of the time. "If you really want to know what Derek's intentions are then why don't you go ask him yourself?"

"I still have to ask her about it." He mumbled, shaking his head. He wanted to hear it from her first. He didn't want to go to Isaac or Derek.

When the whistle to end practice finally blew, Carmen walked up to Scott clutching her phone in her hands. Isaac eyed them suspiciously as he packed up his gear, but he didn't want his temper to act up again. He left to go get showered and just decided that it was best for him to let them talk. "Hey, can I talk to you about something for a second?"

"If it's about you and Isaac then you're gonna know that I'm not comfortable with it." He said, raising his hand up to make her stop talking. "But Stiles talked to me and I just guess that as long as you keep a clear head and don't be stupid then I'm fine with it. But I still don't like him." He shuffled his foot. He couldn't really describe the look on her face but she looked like she didn't know whether or not she was supposed to be happy about it.

"That's um...that's actually not what I wanted to talk about. But we can kill two birds with one stone, I guess that's good." She laughed nervously, scratching the back of her neck.

"Wait, then what is it?" He could hear Stiles calling him to go and shower, but he had to wait for what she had to say.

"The Argents know, Scott. About me and Troy. Gerard called me into his office today to interrogate me." She covered her face with her hands and shook her head. "I...I don't know what to do. We have to leave. It's not safe being that close to them." She started to hyperventilate but Scott hugged her tightly. Then he let go once he realized that Isaac was walking towards them. And he had that murderous intent written on his features all over again.

"You're not going anywhere." Scott said, holding her shoulders in place. "We're going to find a way around this, okay?

"What's going on?" Isaac asked, staring at Scott's hands on his girlfriend's shoulders. He quickly removed them and coughed awkwardly.

"The Argents know about her. She said that Gerard talked to her about it."

"Oh, no, no, no, no, no..." Panic filled his voice and he held Carmen's face in his hands. "I'll find a way to keep you safe, I promise. I'll kill all of them if I have to." Scott's expression softened once he saw how genuine Isaac was being. His guard was completely let down and for the first time he could see fear written in those bright blue eyes of his. "We take her to Derek." He said, looking at Scott.

"What!? Are you crazy!?" He knew that was the plan all along. He knew that he couldn't have trusted Derek to keep it together. "We're not taking her to Derek! I'm not letting her become part of his pack! I knew this is what you've been trying to do all along!"

"Are you fucking stupid!?" Isaac screamed, making his irises glow gold. "I would never, _ever _do that. I would never let her get bitten. If the Argents want her dead now how much do you think they'll want her dead after she gets turned!? Derek is the only person who'll know what to do! It's the only way."

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Secret" by The Pierces._

**I think that the next chapter is going to be leading up to the rave rather than actually _at _the rave, but I still need to decide. I want to make sure that I give you guys enough of the arc that this chapter talks about so please leave me a review and give me some suggestions for what you want to see! :)**


	12. Saint Simon

**Chapter 11**

_"Mercy's eyes are blue; when she places them in front of you nothing really holds a candle to the solemn warmth you feel inside of you."_

"So you're Carmen." Derek crossed his arms over his chest, looking her up and down for the first time. He had heard Isaac talking Boyd's ear off about how beautiful she was and he wasn't wrong about it. He mostly just talked about her face but he didn't shy away from the fact that she had long legs either. "Huh." He nodded and turned around, leading them closer into the back of the house.

"Huh, what?" She asked him, raising an eyebrow as he sat down at a table and drummed his fingers on it, sticking his tongue into his cheek. This was the Derek she had been told so much about and she didn't really see what was so impressive about him except for his biceps. But she did notice that he brooded a lot. Maybe that's where Isaac picked it up from.

"It's nothing. Isaac just talks in his sleep." He shrugged, savoring the look on his beta's embarrassed face. His cheeks turned pink and she resolved that she'd just talk to him about it later. "Anyways, what do you want? If you brought her to me then something has to be up." There was something in the back of his mind that made him at least a little bit hopeful that they wanted her to join his pack, but he pushed the feeling out of his brain.

"The Argents want to kill her and her brother. We need a plan." Scott cut right to the chase and Derek laughed in his face. "Derek, this isn't funny. We have to protect her." That seemed to be the only thing that he and Isaac could agree on.

"Do you really think that the Argents are really going to make her a priority?" He scoffed, rolling his eyes. "No offense, I'm sure you're really fun to be around," He nodded in Carmen's direction and she thanked him, "but if they didn't kill Lydia then I'm pretty sure they won't kill her. She's friends right Allison, right?"

"Yeah," Scott replied, realizing that everything was a lot clearer right now. It just seemed like an Argent characteristic to leave empty threats.

"I mean, not saying that they won't kill her if she's on their way..."

"Stop treating this like it's a joke!" Isaac snapped, banging his hands down on the table. "If she's in danger then we have to do something. Or I'll do something by myself."

"Congratulations, Romeo. You've just managed to make a dumbass out of yourself." Derek shook his head. Isaac was being weak and they both knew it. He was already too attached to her to back down and he was getting possessive. "You can't even fight Scott and win. I don't think you'll be able to take on a clan of hunters." He rolled his eyes and got up from the table.

Isaac's face turned completely red as Carmen stifled a laugh by putting her hand over her mouth. "Just at least tell us what we should do." He pleaded with him. Derek looked at him and saw how genuinely concerned and scared he was.

"If it would make you feel better, just watch her for a couple of days and wait it out. If they don't strike within that window then there's no real threat."

"I'll do it." Scott and Isaac both said at the same time, staring at each other with shocked expressions.

"I'll do it. If anything happens at least I've had experience." Scott said. Isaac shook his head vehemently and protectively wrapped his hand around Carmen's torso.

"No, _I'll _do it." He growled and barred his teeth, staring Scott down. "It's my job. I'm her boyfriend." The two of them glared at each other like they were going to enter a bare-knuckled boxing match. She felt like she was being crushed by their tension.

"You don't know what you're doing! You'll get both of you killed!"

_"I can handle it."_

"Why don't you just have her decide?" Derek gestured towards Carmen, who was now being stared at intently by the two teenage boys. She already decided that she thought the alpha was a smartass.

"I...um...it's nothing personal, Scott, but like..." The grin on her boyfriend's face couldn't have been any more devious. He was so competitive against Scott it was like he had just won a battle. "My brother wouldn't freak out if he saw Isaac at my house and...yeah." She sighed, looking at him apologetically. He nodded and accepted the verdict, but he turned to Isaac and put his index finger right in her face.

"If anything happens to her I guarantee you that your ass is going to get kicked so hard you won't be able to walk for weeks."

* * *

When Isaac and Carmen walked into her room he exhaled deeply and rolled his shoulders back. He'd have a long night ahead of him so he quickly took his shoes off and plopped onto her bed. His huge frame took up the entire mattress and she decided that she'd let him sleep for a few hours so that she could cut him a break. "When my brother comes home you have to be as quiet as possible." She said to him as she knelt by her record player and put the needle on a vinyl disc.

"Mmhm..." He heard classical music coming from the player and he looked up and saw her spinning the cover for _Le Fabuleux Destin D'Amélie Poulain _in her hands just as he had done a few days before. He only had to listen to the music for five seconds to notice how depressingly sad it was. "What song is this?" He asked her with half of his mouth squished against her pillow.

"Rhyme of Another Summer Afternoon." She smiled at him, setting the cover down. "It's my favorite song on the whole record." He furrowed his brow and looked at her with troubled eyes.

"Wait...what? But it's so depressing!" Apparently he'd gotten the moods of the two songs from the other day really mixed up and now he was just really confused. She smiled at him sadly like there was a bigger message behind this song other than it being really disheartening.

"That's why I like it so much." Her reply was so simple but it only threw him off even more. She sat up on her window seat and put her back up against the wall so that she could look outside. He noticed that the fingers of her right hand danced in correspondence to the piano notes being played.

"Can you play the piano?" He asked her, suddenly making her body turn in his direction. She looked flustered. He felt like he had crossed some sort of line and he didn't want to make her upset. But he knew that she played the piano. He had seen one in the family picture on her dresser. Why was she so uncomfortable talking about it? "Never mind." He mumbled, burying his face in the pillow so that he could force himself to fall asleep. In ten minutes he was snoring away and Carmen turned her record player off. She sat by her desk and read a book, occasionally looking up at Isaac. He was completely spread eagle on the bed and every few minutes without fail she saw his toes and fingers curl in synchronization. He smacked his lips together a couple of times and squirmed around on her comforter, managing to get himself tangled up in the sheets.

Three hours later, she was nearly done with her book and he woke up from his nap. He rolled around and tried to untangle himself from the sheets but he only succeeded in falling off the bed. She laughed and put her arms underneath his shoulders to lift him up. "You sleep with your mouth open." She giggled, helping him unwrap himself from the sheets.

"Apparently I do a lot when I sleep." He mumbled, scratching the back of his head. He reclined back onto the mattress and folded his arms behind his head. "No wonder why you come into school so awake. This thing is like a dream." He closed his eyes and sighed. It had been a while since he'd felt comfortable in a bed.

"Then you can 'dream' while I go shower." She patted his chest and got up from the bed, making him chuckle softly. "What is it?"

"Oh, nothing. You just gave me a pretty good idea for a dream, that's all." He winked at her. Sometimes he was so sickeningly charming it made her stomach turn, but it was a good kind of turn. The kind that gave you butterflies and filled your head with air. Boyfriends had always been hard for her because she never knew if she was controlling their feelings or if they actually felt something for her. At least she knew that Isaac acted based on his own free will.

She took clothes with her into the bathroom and she stepped under the hot water. It was easy to admit that having Isaac there made everything feel safer and even though Derek had said that there was no real threat the fact that he was so worried about her made her heart swell. Somehow she felt guilty for how protective he had become but she knew that it was because he didn't really have anybody else to be protective of. She was just so jealous that he could deal with everything that had happened to him with such ease. There were times that she felt like she wanted to crawl under a rock and die because of her guilt. Isaac had been being hurt for _years _and yet he bottled it in so easily. Whenever she was alone she'd scream into her pillow until it made her so exhausted she'd just have to fall asleep. Coping with it all didn't seem to be getting any easier and she was afraid that it never would.

When she got out of the bathroom, Isaac was hanging upside-down on her bed watching TV. "Having fun?" She asked him as she walked by, tying up her hair into a bun. She was wearing a plain white v-neck and short black shorts that seemed to make her legs go on for days. She got onto the bed and laid down on her stomach next to him so that if he lifted his neck up he would have been looking directly into her eyes. She leaned on his chest and played with his curly hair, looking at what he had playing on the TV. She didn't know he had a thing for cartoons. While she was occupied with what was happening on the screen in front of her, he pulled himself upwards and sent his lips crashing onto hers. She was caught off-guard but it didn't really matter anyways since he was able to push her up against the bed and climb on top of her. "I thought you were watching something..." She mumbled against his mouth, feeling his tongue slip in between her lips, pushing against her own._  
_

"Who cares?" One of his hands was gripped tightly against her hips and she could feel his thumb digging into her hip bone. His other hand was cupping her face and his heart was pumping so rapidly he was sure it would rip right through his chest. She wrapped her legs around his long torso and her arms were crossed behind his back. He thought he was going to go insane. They both came up for air with their lungs heaving but once they could breathe again he dove right back into it. He had never felt so wanted in his life before. It was like the heavens had opened up and given Carmen to him as an apology for treating him like shit for so long. He gently bit on her lower lip just to see what would happen and he heard the ever-satisfying sound of a moan coming from her mouth. He grinned and tightened his grip on her hip bones. For somebody who had seemed so shy before he had gotten the bite, she thought he was a pretty experienced kisser.

He just kept attacking her lips with his lips and her tongue with his tongue. He didn't feel like stopping any time soon. "Sorry I'm home so late!" Troy's voice had scared the two of them so much that their front teeth clanked together. They broke apart and inhaled sharply, wiping the saliva from their mouths. She pushed him off her and nudged him to sit on the floor in front of her bed and pretend like nothing had happened. Her brother knocked on her door and was pretty taken aback to see Isaac sitting in front of the bed when he looked inside the room. "Hi, Isaac." He said, nodding in his direction.

"Sup, Troy." He nodded, doing a really good job at being entranced by the cartoons. Probably because he was still thinking about that kiss. Or kisses. There had been a lot of them and he hadn't kept track. "You have a good time saving lives today?" It was so funny to Carmen that the sassy bad-boy look Isaac had came and went so easily. It's like he was used to hiding things.

"Yeah, I guess so...it's pretty late isn't it?" Troy scrunched up his face, looking at the clock on the wall. It was almost 11:30. Isaac sighed and took this as his cue to stand up and shake the hand of the resident Jesus Christ.

"I'll just be going then. School in the morning." He smiled curtly, walking over to his girlfriend so that he could kiss her forehead. "I'll see you later." A smirk covered his face and he grabbed his leather jacket, walking out the door. Once he heard the front door close, Troy turned to his little sister.

"Why was he here so late?" He put his hands on his hips, expecting an answer.

"He didn't want to miss his cartoons." She shrugged, using the remote to turn her TV off. He sighed and sat down at the foot of her bed, trying to figure out how he was going to approach this.

"I'm really glad that the kid makes you happy, Carm. Don't get me wrong." He blew hot air out of his mouth and looked at her. "But there's just something about him that seems a little off to me."

"Could it possibly be the fact that he's a werewolf? Because that's was my first guess was."

"Stop being such a smartass."

"Stop prompting me." Just because he was her acting parent didn't meant that they still didn't act like brother and sister. "Isaac is perfectly fine. There's nothing wrong with him. It's just your imagination."

"I don't think I imagine the fact that he broods." He rolled his eyes, remembering the look he had generated from the werewolf when he walked into the room. She laughed and nodded. He was definitely right about that.

"He doesn't always mean to. I just think it's his natural expression." Personally she thought it made him more attactive, but she was completely biased. Plus agreeing with her brother was the quickest way to get him out of her room. She knew Isaac was waiting outside on the balcony and she didn't want to keep him out there for longer than necessary.

"Alrighty then. Night, sis." He kissed the top of her head and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind him. She waited until it was safe then she opened her balcony doors for Isaac. He had his arms crossed over his chest and it looked like he had been in deep thought.

"Do I really brood?"

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Saint Simon" by The Shins. _

**The rave is probably going to begin in the next chapter and then end in the one after that. I think it just hit me that I'm already on episode 8 out of 12 haha. I still don't know how long this fic is going to run for yet but it'll be finished when it's finished I guess! Then I'll probably end up writing a sequel for everything in season 3. **


	13. Ooh La

**Chapter 12**

_"Then you smiled, he got wild. You didn't understand that there's money to be made; beauty is a card that must get played by organization. Well ooh la, she was such a good girl to me. And ooh la, the world just chewed her up and spat her out."_

"Isaac doesn't seem to be too worried about getting tickets..." Stiles mumbled to Scott under his breath, watching Isaac lean over Carmen and whisper things into her ear. She laughed and elbowed him in the gut, which prompted him to kiss her on the cheek. He didn't think that they were talking about the rave tomorrow night. It was their one chance to catch Jackson and everything had to go perfectly otherwise he'd kill again. Stiles swore that maybe getting Jackson to kill _him _would be a lot more appealing than watching one of his friends make googly eyes at a guy who almost made him pee his pants. Twice. "They're like...really, _really _strange to watch."

"Then don't watch?" Isaac flipped his head in Stiles's direction, making him swallow a lump in his throat. Always forgetting about the super-wolf hearing. Or maybe it was because they were only about 7 feet away from him. The final bell rang and everybody ran out towards the door, but the four of them lingered in the hallway. "Can I help you with something?" He noticed that Scott and Stiles were hovering around him and it was distracting him from the task at-hand, which wasn't really much of a task to begin with. It was more of a "how much more charming can I possibly be?" cause-and-effect experiment.

"Who'd you get the rave tickets from?" Scott asked, knowing that he hadn't seen Isaac that night he went to go buy tickets and he knew for sure that he'd be going.

"Oh, I don't have tickets." He shrugged, acting like nothing was wrong.

"Then how are you getting in?"

Carmen shifted uncomfortably and gave her two friends a guilty smile. "With great power comes great responsibility, kids." Isaac shrugged, savoring the shocked looks on their faces. "Hey, don't look at me. Her idea. I'm just going with the flow."

"Wait you're gonna push the rave's security?" Stiles stared at Carmen, completely slack-jawed. It didn't seem like it was something she would do. She facepalmed herself and shook her head.

"No, Stiles. I'm going to take my shirt off for them. What do you think I'm going to do?" He didn't seem very taken aback at the idea. It seemed like that was more acceptable than her manipulating them.

"Hey, if the other way works then I'm totally game." Isaac shrugged, making her elbow his stomach. Scott just looked completely disgusted. If this is what he and Allison looked like to other people then he was finally being self-conscious. "You guys are gonna be searching up people's asses for tickets when I've already got mine." He shrugged, slinging his arm around her shoulders.

"Don't use her as a free pass." Scott growled.

"I told you it was her idea." They were closing in on each other again just like they had done at Derek's and Carmen hated it.

"Okay, you guys seriously need to stop." She put her hands on their chests and they immediately drew back. "It was my idea, Scott. It's not even that big of a deal, I promise." The way she talked about it was so assuring but he just couldn't help but feel like it was something she wouldn't do if Isaac wasn't around.

"Alright, whatever. We're going to practice." He shook his head and left with Stiles. Maybe Carmen actually taking advantage of her ability wasn't such a bad idea. She was at least using it in an excusable way, but to Scott it just didn't feel that excusable at all. It was like she was using it to con people. It would have probably made him feel better if she had just found a ticket but he knew that they weren't easy to come by. He didn't want to believe that she was changing because of Isaac, but she _was _changing. Scott didn't know how to feel.

"I told you that you didn't have to do it if you didn't want to." Isaac said quietly, leaning her up against the locker again. He entwined his fingers with her and caressed the back of her palm with his thumb. "Because there are other ways to—"

"Use it or lose it." She said simply, making him generate a hesitant look. "We have to catch Jackson and I don't want to feel completely useless, okay?" She admitted, seeing that he wasn't satisfied with her original reply. He wasn't really satisfied with her second version either but he didn't want to be late for practice.

"I guess I'll just see you later." He sighed, pecking her on the lips. She nodded and watched him walk off, shaking his head.

_"You have to do this," _The little voice inside her head told her as she walked out of the school to her car. _"You need to stop playing nice. It's not cute anymore. You were meant to be more than a porcelain doll with pretty eyes." _She banged her head against the headrest of her driver's seat and tightened her grip on the steering wheel. She didn't even realize that she hadn't started the car yet. _"Mom and Dad didn't raise you to be like this. They raised you to take advantage of your gift. You're unique. You're better than Troy. He will never be able to do the things you can do."_

For the first time in a while she could feel rage rising in her body. And it was directed at her brother. Her best friend, her surrogate parent, her protector...she was was furious with him. But why? He had done so much for her. He had the most promising life ahead of him and he had left it for her. She was always trying to make it up to him but every day of her life she felt like she'd never be able to repay him. She tried to push the voice out of her head but it wouldn't leave. _"Aren't you sick and tired of living in his shadow all the time? Troy's so perfect, everybody always says. What can Carmen do? Carmen can't do anything Troy can. She isn't as good as he is." _It hissed into her ears, making her shut her eyes tightly. She bit down on her lip so hard that she thought her teeth would drive right through the flesh.

"Stop it, stop it...that's not true..." Tears streamed down her face and her body rocked back and forth.

_"Then stop being such a fucking failure and prove it."_

* * *

As they neared the bouncer checking tickets at the door leading into the wearhouse, Isaac sucked in a deep breath and nervously balled his fists. "You're okay with this, right? Like you know you can do this for sure?" Carmen was walking in front of him and he had his hands on her shoulders, playing with the gold chain of her necklace. He knew she wasn't used to using her ability like this and it made him feel uncomfortable. He didn't have a plan for what was going to happen if it didn't work.

"Watch me." She mumbled, rolling her shoulders so that he could take his hands off. If he didn't have the confidence in her to do it then she'd prove it to him and make him shut up. They were the next two in line and the bouncer looked them up and down, trying to see if there was anything suspicious about them. Isaac's face was angelic as they came and Carmen's heart-shaped face made her look like she'd never hurt a fly.

The bouncer was a stocky guy in his mid-20s who had sandy blonde hair and a defined jaw line. Very good-looking. "You two together?" He asked, still debating whether or not he saw them as okay to enter. Isaac's fingers tightened around her waist and he nodded. "Tickets?" He held his hand out for them, not expecting Carmen to put her hand in his instead.

Isaac's heart started to race and he bit down on his lip, begging for this plan to work. Then he noticed the bouncer's expression become completely empty. His pupils grew large and they stared right at her like a dog stared at its master. "We don't need tickets. We're friends with the DJ. He always lets us in for free." She smiled widely. _"You're going to let us in, aren't you?"_

The bouncer pulled back the rope leading to the opening and she let go of his hand and quickly pulled Isaac in with her. The sound of loud music filled their ears and bright, flashing lights bounced off their clothes. "How was that?" She winked at her boyfriend, adoring the tongue-in-cheek smirk that appeared on his face. He draped his arm around her shoulders and kissed the side of her face.

"Spectacular." He pulled back the plastic sheeting around the main entranceway and they were immediately bombarded with seizure-inducing neon-colored lights flashing at the beat of the loud house music. More than a hundred dancing bodies dressed in skin-tight clothes and outfitted with glowsticks danced and jumped around together. "Erica should be in here..." He said, scanning the room for her. He found her over by a pillar next to Scott. "Just hold onto me." He gripped her hand and led them both through the crowd of sweaty party-goers to the other two werewolves.

"Did you have any problems getting let in?" Scott just had to ask. Even though he didn't really like the idea to begin with he was still intrigued by it.

"Not at all." She was so proud of what she did that even having Erica there didn't bother her. Carmen couldn't even explain why she didn't like the female werewolf either. Maybe it was just because the jealousy she had never faded away even after she and Isaac were together or maybe it was because there was something about her that seemed untrustworthy. Either way, they weren't going to be friends but they were both completely fine with that. They glared at other and neither one looked like they were going to stand down.

"I'll go get a head start on Jackson." Erica rolled her eyes, walking away and disappearing into the throng of bodies. She didn't have time to get into a staring contest.

"Isaac, I need you to do something for me." Scott said, taking a silver syringe with a trigger out of his pocket. Isaac's first instinct was to back away but he was fascinated with the thought of getting to do something important.

Carmen looked over her shoulder to try and pick Jackson out of the crowd, but she could barely even distinguish faces with all the lights flashing. The only people she recognized were Allison and Matt, and she blinked a couple times because she thought she was imagining it. Scott never said that she'd be here at all, let alone with Matt. "Hey, I need to ask you something too." Scott said, tapping her on the shoulder. She turned around to him and leaned against the pillar.

"Do you think you'll be able to push Jackson?" He put his hands on her shoulders, sort of hoping that she'd end up relaxing him. It didn't really happen. There was still so much he had to learn about her ability but that would be another time. She gave him an unsure look and bit down on her lip like she was thinking about it.

"Scott, it's too dangerous—" Isaac cut in merely out of protectiveness, but Scott's demanding voice was not to be interrupted.

"Have you ever pushed him before?"

She shut her eyes tightly, remembering how surprised she had been when it hadn't worked the first time. It was the day in chemistry that he left with the bloody nose. Before she even knew that this entire world existed. It seemed like years ago when it had only been 5 months. "I did, once. But it was in the beginning of the year...I-I think I can do it if he's not shifted, but once he is I don't know if I can—" She didn't want to fail now. Everything was too important for her to make it all amount to nothing.

"Don't worry, Isaac can buy you time." Scott said reassuringly, making her nod along with him. There was a hint of sureness in his voice, like he trusted Isaac to do everything right. She swallowed a lump in her throat and flexed her fingers out, taking in a deep breath. "Just plan it out and you'll be fine." He let go of her shoulders and ran off to go find Argent.

Isaac cupped her face in his hands and made sure that they were looking directly into each other's eyes. "Once we find him, you're gonna have to get him out of it long enough and strong enough for me to inject the ketamine into his neck. I'll be behind you the entire time. If you sense anything, _anything _at all just give me a signal. I won't let anything happen to you, I promise." She shut her eyes tightly and felt his hands wrap around hers. If she got hurt he would never forgive himself. "And don't let go of me."

"Wasn't planning on it." She was so nervous he could feel her pulse even though he was barely touching her wrists, but she still managed to give him a smile. She wasn't going to doubt herself now. It was too late to go back to the way things were.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Ooh La" by The Kooks. _

**Alright guys! Finally at the rave scene haha. It's definitely going to continue into the next chapter and I'm really excited to write it. I'd really love it if you guys could drop me a review with your thoughts on what you liked about my re-working of what happened! :)**


	14. Heads Will Roll

**Chapter 13**

_"Off, off with your head. Dance, dance 'till you're dead. Heads will roll, heads will roll, heads will roll on the floor."_

Erica's watchful eyes studied the crowd, looking back and forth between the regular party-goers and Isaac so that she could give him a signal if she spotted Jackson. She looked for anything out of the ordinary, and then she noticed how one person from the back seemed to be wading straight through the crowd. _Bingo. _Isaac saw the look on her face and flicked his head to the left to see Jackson making his way to the front of the room.

"Show time." He said, pulling Carmen with him. Once they were close enough to Jackson she was the one to walk up to him with Isaac's hand still holding onto her own. She traced her fingers down the back of Jackson's head and neck, making him turn around to face her. Her chest was thumping but she promised herself that she would stay calm. Her mind flashed back to that first day when she had met him and she knew she was the one in control now.

"Wanna dance?" She whispered softly, brushing her lips against his ear. He seemed to be in a trance of his own, but that wasn't going to deter her. She batted her eyelashes at him and pressed her body up against his, feeling his fingers dig into her hip bones. Exactly the way Issac's always did. He pulled her into him but it was suddenly countered by the feeling of her boyfriend pulling her backwards into his own body. His hand slid to her stomach where he felt her hand on his. She was absolutely terrified and he could feel it. Jackson got closer to her and she kept staring into his eyes, trying to lull him in as much as possible. She kept her hand on the back of his neck and tried as hard as she could to not lose contact with his bare skin. She could do this. She would be worth more than what people took her for.

She could feel the growl rising in Isaac's chest but she pulled him closer to her and he quieted down. Then Jackson's strong hands slid down from her hip bones and she could feel them resting on her ass. His mouth dove in and hungrily kissed her neck and her jaw, and an incredible heat grew in her stomach as she felt his teeth drag across her sensitive skin. She gasped in and let out a moan, suddenly losing herself and breaking her concentration. The moment those sounds left her mouth, Isaac's insides twisted with rage as his possessive instincts begged to be unleashed. She was _his_ and _only his_. It was supposed to be _him_ leaving the love bites on her neck. It was supposed to be _him_ touching her like that. It was supposed to be _him_ making her heart beat faster and making her chest heave for breath. Nobody else.

He grit his teeth, trying to tell himself to hold it together but he was about to lose it. He reached behind his back and gripped tightly onto the syringe, wishing that he could make it as painful for Jackson as humanly possible. He wanted him to suffer. He slowly began to raise his arm but he felt the painful sensation of something sharp digging into his other hand. Carmen had pressed her nails so hard into the back of his palm that he was starting to bleed. Her lips were trembling and she was trying her best to stay concentrated but she could smell the kanima on Jackson. It was his pheromones again. Her fingers were shaking and Isaac knew that something was wrong. His reflexes kicked in and he yanked her down to the floor as Jackson's claws swiped the air where she had just been.

As he fell to the concrete ground, the syringe slipped out of his hand and slid across the floor. "You're fine? Can you move? Tell me you can move." His panicked voice rattled off quickly. She shoved him off her and tried her best to catch her breath.

"GO!" She screamed, pushing him away when he tried to move closer to her to see if she was okay. Jackson was moving faster now. If Isaac didn't get there in time it would be too late. He tripped over his feet and struggled to grab the syringe which was continually getting kicked around. Finally he reached out and gripped it tightly, pulling himself up and jabbing the needle into Jackson's neck, wrapping his fingers around the trigger. The sedative pushed through into his veins and Isaac grunted as Jackson passed out on top of him, leaving nothing but dead weight.

* * *

"And you're sure you're okay?" Isaac raised one of his eyebrows, running the pads of his fingers over a patch of scraped skin on Carmen's palm. She breathed in sharply and yanked her hand away, leaving him with a hurt look on his face. She didn't want him to worry about her.

_"My hands are going to look so ugly. Nobody's going to want me to touch them for the rest of my life." She mumbled, wincing whenever her brother pulled yet another tiny piece of bloody glass out of her skin with his tweezers. They were sitting in a musty but nevertheless quiet motel room, and she sat on the edge of the bed while he sat in a chair across from her so he could fix up her hands. She just had the feeling in her chest that she would never feel safe again. There was a fear planted in the back her mind that she would always have to keep running because there would always be a threat. _

_"If you stop moving then I'll get everything out and you won't scar." Troy gripped her wrist tighter, making her cringe. "This isn't my first rodeo. I know what I'm doing so stop making me feel like I'm a soccer mom armed with a couple of ice-packs."_

"What happened to you?" Stiles asked, noticing the patches of red on her skin.

"Nothing. I'm fine." She replied, wiping the blood on her dark shorts. All she had to do was wait for it to clot and then everything would be okay. He could tell that she didn't want to talk about it so he looked over at Isaac who was glowering at Jackson's sedated body. He walked over and flicked his wrist, releasing his claws. Before he could get close enough, Jackson's arm sprung out and grabbed Isaac's wrist with a vice grip. Carmen's breath got caught in her throat and she could feel her insides burning up at the sight of him in so much pain. He yelled out in torment and tightened his face, feeling his bones crack. The more the grip twisted the more he tried to desperately remove Jackson's fingers from him. He cried out in agony and ripped himself away, holding his slackened hand. Stiles and Carmen tried to tend to him but he shook his head.

"It's already healing. I can feel it, don't worry about me." He breathed in and out deeply, shutting his eyes. He held his wrist against his leg, rocking back and forth to ease the pain. He could feel his bones binding back together and some of the sting started to ebb away but it still hurt pretty badly. He felt a warm hand against the back of his neck and immediately he let go of his wrist, feeling nothing but ecstasy coursing through his body.

"Seriously, though. I'm never gonna get over how cool that is." Stiles shook his head and chuckled, watching as the strawberry blonde-haired girl massaged her fingertips around the back of her boyfriend's neck.

"I thought the ketamine was supposed to put him out..." Isaac mumbled, looking up at her.

"You're lucky he didn't do more to you." She said softly, focusing on helping him take away the pain. "Let's just hope that whoever is controlling him decided to show up tonight."

_"Shit."_ Stiles jumped backwards and pushed himself up against the metal wall behind him. The three of them stared at Jackson who stared back at them with death written in his eyes.

"I'm here. I'm right here with you." A voice left his mouth but it sounded nothing like him. It was cold and robotic, like somebody was speaking right through him. Using him as a puppet. Stiles walked towards him and Carmen tried to hold him back but he ignored her and lowered himself to eye level.

"Jackson...? Is that you...?" His voice cracked and he swallowed, telling himself to stay calm.

_"Us. We're all here." _

"Get behind me." Isaac stood up and he backed her against the wall.

"Are you the one killing people?" Stiles took a deep breath in, searching for a sign that could help him make sense of what was going on.

_"We're the ones killing murderers." _Jackson's mouth and eyes were starting to twitch every-so slightly but it was more than enough to make Stiles back away a little bit.

"So all the people you've killed so far—"

_"Deserved it." _

He thought back to the beastiary. The kanima killed murderers and only murderers. Anything else warranted consequences. "See, we've got a little rulebook that says you only go after murderers."

_"Anything can break if enough pressure is applied." _

"So the people you're killing are all murderers then?" Somehow he found that a little difficult to believe.

_"All. Each. And every one of them." _The voice filled with unbridled rage, and Jackson's eyes were beginning to slowly roll into the back of his head.

"Then who did they murder?" Stiles's voice was cold and calculating, displaying his courage under situations that called for it but were never nurturing towards it.

_"Me." _A shocked looked covered the faces of everybody in the room. What was that supposed to mean? The master was talking through Jackson and the master had to be alive. None of this made any sense. _"They murdered me!" _Stiles looked back towards Isaac but the look on his face had transformed from shock to fear. Carmen ran to Stiles and pulled him up off the ground as Jackson's body began to shudder and twist as the scales of the kanima covered his body.

"GET OUT!" Isaac yelled, pushing all of them out of the door as the scream of the kanima echoed in their ears. They huddled closely together against the metal door and heard nothing but silence for a few seconds, like they were the only people around. They started to breathe a little easier thinking that it was over, but that wasn't to be true.

The kanima's scaly body ripped through the wall and ran off into the night with its tail slithering behind it. Somebody was going to die tonight and nobody could stop it from happening.

* * *

"Okay! You guys go find Erica and I'll see if I can find Scott." Stiles said to the couple, running out the door of the warehouse.

Immediately Isaac turned to his girlfriend and she could tell that he was upset about something. "When we were back there...why wouldn't you let me touch you?" He was still confused about her pulling her hand away from him.

"It just hurt, that's all." She lied right through her teeth and he could tell. She moved her head around and tried to scan the crowd to see if she could find Erica anywhere. "I really don't think we should talk about this now."

"Why won't you tell me?" The anguish in his voice was easily detectable. He was only trying to care about her. There was nothing wrong with that. He was worried.

"Later, Isaac." She shook her head, feeling relief wash over her once she saw Erica in the crowd. That was a first. She pulled him along with her but he dragged his heels. "There's a murderous lizard running around this place and you want to talk about why I wouldn't let you fucking touch my hand!?" She hissed at him, yanking his arm as hard as she could. "We can talk about it later, I promise. Just not now."

_Later. _Somehow he felt like she'd never tell him. Every time he had tried to ask about her past she brushed it off like it was nothing and the subject was never brought up again. He didn't know what she had been through but he wanted to. He wanted to understand her more. He wanted to show her that he cared.

Once Erica spotted them, she ran up to them out of breath. "I saw it. I saw the blood...the body...everything. Somebody's already dead." Her face ran pale and she tried to push the image out of her mind but it was something she'd be seeing for the rest of her life. "I thought Stiles was with you guys?"

"He ran out to go find Scott. We should go too." Carmen said, leading them all out the door. They saw Stiles and Derek by the Jeep and they started to walk towards them, but Isaac's nose twitched and he put his arm out in front of both the girls. He kneeled down and saw a trail of black powder, running along the length of the building. Whenever his fingers moved towards it they started to burn so he backed away as far as possible.

Sheer joy covered Stiles's face as he bounced up and down on his toes. "Oh my God it works!" Even after all the events that had just transpired he still managed to be excited. "I did it! Look at what I did! It works!" He squealed at Derek who rolled his eyes. He was so proud that he had finally been able to do something that mattered. He didn't screw up.

Too bad the kanima was inside of the circle along with Erica, Carmen, and Isaac.

"Yo! Carm, move out here and admire this!" Stiles gestured to her. The smile dropped off his face when she rolled her eyes and shook her head. "What is it?"

"Obviously the girl who can control emotions _isn't _a supernatural being and can totally cross this line of mountain ash!" She snapped sarcastically. Stiles scoffed at her. At least the circle still worked. She started chewing on her nails and she paced around, trying to figure out what the next move would be. Jackson was still running amok and there was no telling what he'd do next. They still had no idea who was controlling him. She heard a high-pitched yelp that caught her attention and she looked up to see Derek grabbing Stiles by the shirt.

"Break it!" He yelled with urgency in his voice. "Scott's dying! Break it now!" He demanded, looking at the circle.

"What do you mean he's dying!? How do you know!?" The only thing he had done right. And it was about to go down the drain.

"I JUST KNOW, OKAY?! BREAK THE DAMN CIRCLE!"

Stiles knelt down and broke the trail of mountain ash apart. He sighed deeply as he looked at his handiwork gone to waste. Derek rushed away, leaving everybody very scared and very confused. "Do you think Jackson's got Scott?" Stiles asked, running over to the group on the other side of the circle.

"No," Erica shook her head, shutting her eyes tightly. Her body was still shaking.

"What? Why not?"

"Because the kanima already killed tonight."

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Heads Will Roll" by The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. _

**OKAY. RAVE. OVER. It was a little confusing to write because I had to work it out the way I wanted but I'm glad that I didn't go completely according to the episode and I tried to be original with it. Also: I got a question asking why Carmen hears voices in her head. That ties into the panic attack/episode she had back in Chapter 8 after the kanima screeched. You guys will find out what it all means in the next chapter!**


	15. Blood Bank

**Chapter 14**

_"And I said I know it well—that secret that you know that you don't know to tell. It fucks with your honor and it teases your head."_

"Come in." Carmen sighed when her brother knocked on her door. He had a small white paper bag in his hand that had the symbol for "prescription" printed on it. She smacked her head against her pillow and held her hand out to take it from him like it was part of a routine she had mastered a long time ago.

"I just came by to drop these off. You were due for a refill." He said, kissing her forehead when he set the bag down on her nightstand. She nodded and drew her lips into a thin line like she wasn't even paying attention to what he was saying. "Any plans for today?"

"I'll probably see Isaac." She said quietly, twiddling her thumbs. _Probably _meaning _he'll be outside in ten minutes. _Somehow things were always better when she was around him. He made her stop hurting. Troy nodded and took one last look at the paper bag before he left. As soon as he walked down the stairs she grabbed the bag and tore it open. Two orange medicine bottles greeted her expectant eyes. She yanked open the drawer at the bottom her dresser that held old t-shirts and extra towels. Her hand dug at the bottom of it until she felt a box underneath her fingers. She pulled it out and opened it, cringing when she saw all eight of the other prescription bottles. None of them had a single pill missing. She dropped the new bottles in and knew she'd have to get rid of everything soon because she wasn't going to have enough space to keep them all.

As she tucked the box back into the bottom of the drawer she heard a knock on the front door. She blew hot air out of her mouth and moved her hands over her face to clear out her head so that she could actually think straight. She didn't want him to think that anything was wrong. Her bare feet padded on the ground and she opened the door for him. When she opened it and saw him he didn't smile brightly like he usually did. When he walked through the doorway he didn't even kiss her or say hi to her. "Isaac, is something wrong?"

He didn't want to do this. He didn't want to put pressure on her or to make her uncomfortable but he had the right to know after trying so hard. "Um...can we talk?" He shuffled his foot nervously and played with his hands before jamming them into his pockets. Lately she had just seemed a little distant and he didn't want to feel like he was losing her. He wanted so badly for her to tell him about her past but he couldn't build up the courage to do it.

"Yeah, of course." She said unsurely, bringing him up into her room. He sat down on the edge of the bed and she just stood in front of him and tried to figure out what was going on. "What's up?"

He took in a deep breath and decided that this was going to like taking off a band-aid. Lots of pain at first but it would go away. Eventually. "My dad used to lock me in a freezer." He blurted out, looking up at her. She was chewing on her thumbnail and her arm was crossed over her chest. Why was he even telling her this? She knew that he never talked about it so why was he doing it now? "And...I know that you already know. I just wanted you to hear it from me." He said quietly, reaching out to touch her hand. She sighed and sat down next to him, putting her head on his shoulder and closing her eyes. She knew exactly what he wanted from her. He wasn't going to let her hide it from him anymore.

"They got burned alive." Her voice was so quiet even she barely heard it herself. That sentence had never left her mouth before and there was a reason for that. Both of them had been through terrible, terrible things that no person should have even known how to experience. And they both had a difficult time about opening up about it, but they would try. He could feel how tightly her fingers were wrapped around his bicep and he shifted uncomfortably. "I was just sitting in the living room and I was playing the piano...the only reason I even learned how to was because Troy couldn't." She laughed softly, but he could tell that she didn't even want to be saying that much to him. "And I was playing my dad's favorite song just to show them I could actually do something right for once...and then it happened." Her eyes got cloudy with tears and her brain flooded with memories that she didn't want there.

"Troy was home from Maryland. It was the first time in a few years that we'd actually been under the roof of our own house all together as a family. And it only made us easier to catch. They waited for us until we were like rats trapped in a glass box." Her voice cracked and he could feel her heart beat rapidly increasing. She forced the lump rising in her throat to go down and stood up and started pacing the room. "I didn't even know how they could tell something was wrong. But then they started to panic. Troy took me into the saferoom under our house and we stayed there for an entire day." Trapped like a fucking animal. She closed her eyes tightly and covered her ears. Isaac wasn't even making a sound. In fact nothing else was making a sound. The room was completely silent. She started to shake her head and gnaw down on her lip, breathing in and out heavily. "No, no, no, no, no..."

It was just like that day in the library. When Isaac had gotten back to her he just found her curled up in a ball with her eyes closed and her hands pressed to her ears. "Shhhh..." He got up and hugged her tightly, pressing her face into his chest. "You're here, okay? You're here and nothing is going to hurt you...I got you, don't worry." The longer he held her the more and more he wished that he would have had somebody to do it for him when he woke up in the middle of the night from his nightmares. He saw what opening up did to her. It tore her apart. There had to be something that she was refusing to tell him—something about her life now. He wanted to know what made her react so badly whenever she thought about her past.

When Carmen opened her eyes she found her face against the fabric of his blue shirt. Her face was against his chest and they were laying on the bed together. She raised her face to look at him and he was just staring at her. "How long?" She asked him quietly, noticing that there was nothing but sadness in his eyes.

"Twenty minutes." He replied softly, sitting up on the bed. "Is there...is there a reason you react like that whenever you think about what happened to your parents?" His long fingers stroked the skin of her cheek, trying to soothe her as much as possible.

"I...it's..." She couldn't even tell her own brother that she was having the episodes again. He'd watch her swallow the pills every day if he had to.

"Because I understand what you're going through, okay? I used to do exactly what you're doing. It happened to me for _months _after my dad started locking me in the freezer. I couldn't sleep anymore. I couldn't think straight. And I had nobody there to coddle me and tell me that things were going to be fine. I'm trying my best, I swear that I am." He pleaded with her, making sure that she understood every single word of what he was saying. "I want to help you. I want to be able to know that somebody cares about me. And if you don't tell me what's going on then how am I supposed to know if you even trust me?" His voice was hoarse but the message was direct.

She bit down on her tongue. _"It's just Isaac," _She told herself over and over again, _"he's been through the same thing. He wants you. He needs you. Don't make him feel otherwise." _She reached down and squeezed his hand tightly just so that she'd be able to keep herself even-tempered. She got up off the bed and kneeled on the floor in front of her dresser. She couldn't have been doing this. She couldn't have been about to tell another human soul about this. Her hands pulled the box from the bottom of the drawer and she went back over to him and set it on the bed between them. "Don't tell anyone." She pleaded, putting her hand on top of his.

She didn't have to push him to get an answer. "I swear that I won't."

His fingers pulled back the lid of the box and he didn't know what he was supposed to have expected. His mind raced when he saw all of the prescription bottles. None of them were even close to being empty. In fact it looked like none of them had ever been opened before. His hand was clearly shaking as he took one of the orange tubes and read the prescription label on it.

**_Carmen Iver_**

_Zoloft. 30 Tablets. 50 mg. Take 1-2 daily to combat PTSD symptoms. _

She expected him to leave. She wouldn't have blamed him. Nobody would have wanted to stay around her after they found about her PTSD. Sometimes she didn't even want to stay around herself. His blue eyes stared at the bottle in his hands for a long time and he looked like he was thinking about something. "What happens...what happens if you take them?" He wanted facts before he made a judgement. He was never going to leave her but that didn't mean he wasn't going to make sure that she was doing what was best for her.

"I get good days and I get bad days." She replied simply, playing with his hand to occupy herself. "But it doesn't matter because they make me feel like shit _every_ day." It had been almost a year since she had stopped taking her pills. She thought that the episodes had just disappeared. That she'd grown out of them. Being lucid for her life was something that she refused to give up. The girl who could control emotions couldn't even control her own.

His thin lips went into an even thinner line and he put the bottle back into the box and closed it. He put it on the nightstand and blew hot air out of his mouth. He moved in so close to her that their noses were bushing against each other and he sandwiched her hands in between his. "You're going to promise me that if things get bad...like, really, really bad...and unbearable—that you'll start taking the meds."

She couldn't believe him. She had just told him a secret that she had never told anybody before. There was a reason for that and clearly it was like he hadn't even paid attention to it. "Isaac—"

"No, you're going to listen to me." She could feel his breath on her skin and his hands kept rubbing up against hers. He was noticeably nervous, like he was afraid he was going to say the wrong thing or make her feel like he didn't have the best intentions in mind. "I care about you and I worry about you and I want you to promise me that if you ever feel more scared than you've ever been or like you're about to do the stupidest thing in the world...that you'll take the pills." He wet his lips with his tongue and pressed his forehead to hers. By now he thought he'd be able to cope with loss like it was some sort of routine. But it never got old. And he wasn't prepared to lose another person.

Being close to him was the most comforting experience she had gone through in a long time. Everything about him infatuated her and made her feel happy. The way his long arms wrapped around her body and comforted her when she needed him to. The soothing sound of his voice and the way he smelled like clean laundry and Old Spice. The gentle way he touched her skin and how he smiled whenever he looked at her. And no matter what, she knew that he'd never let anything bad ever happen to her. She trusted him and she trusted his judgement. "Okay." She answered him reluctantly, just basking in the rush she got when she could feel how relieved he was. He sighed and pulled his lip into his mouth, nodding thankfully.

He moved one of his hands to the nape of her neck and pulled her face closer to his, trying to find some outlet for the emotion that he was feeling in that moment. Her hands rested on his chest and her eyes closed slowly when she felt his open mouth on hers. The moment their lips touched he felt something different than before. It was like every part of his body was more alert and more _alive. _He grabbed onto her waist and pivoted their bodies so he was on top of her, his long body right between her legs. His skin went through flashes of heat and he started to feel sweat down the middle of his back.

She ran her hands through his curly brown hair and pulled on it, sending him into a tailspin. He left her mouth and started planting kisses down her jawline, moving his hands up and down her waist. He started sucking and biting gently on her neck and all that he could remember was how Jackson did the same thing to her at the rave. But he would be better. He would make her forget that it had ever happened. He shuddered when he felt her hands brushing past the pale skin on his torso as she lifted the hem of his shirt up over his head. The scent that came off her neck was intoxicating him. It was like poison to his senses. He couldn't stop what he was doing even if he wanted to. Whatever animal that was inside of him was going to get out and wreak havoc. He dragged his white teeth against the skin above her collar bone and she moaned out his name, throwing her head back into her pillow and craning her body in the direction of his mouth.

He lifted his mouth up towards hers again and he bit on her lip as he aggressively shoved his tongue past her teeth and into her mouth. He let out a growl and this time he didn't even care about it. She could feel his hands lifting up her shirt and she knew that she had to stop him there but it was so hard when his touch felt like heaven to her. "Isaac..." She mumbled, feeling his hands around her back. His fingers were crawling up her spine and she knew what he was trying to do. She called his name again but he continued to ignore her. "Isaac, stop..." His fingers fumbled around the hooks of her bra in the center of her back and she put her hands against his firm chest, knowing that she had to push him as a last resort. "Isaac, stop it!"

He gasped in and let go of her, heaving his naked chest in and out for breath. She covered her face and quickly reached behind her to rehook her bra. Her hands felt the bruises that he had left along her neck and she leaned forward with a sigh. She looked over at him and the look on his innocent face read nothing but guilt as he played with his shirt in his hands. His breathing was normal again but his skin was still flushed. With every breath his lungs took she could see his defined abdomen pull against his flesh. There were still beads of sweat trickling down his neck and the saliva on his lips glistened. "I guess we just found out what happens when the full moon gets close." He laughed sadly, tossing his balled up shirt up in the air and then catching it. The full moon was in a week and he had been dreading the pain that was going to come from it. Derek said that he'd end up trying to find a release whether he liked it or not. He followed her eyes with his as she looked up and down his unnaturally long torso, trying to find some imperfection. She didn't.

And as much as she told herself she had the right idea for stopping him, Carmen wondered what would have happened if they didn't. It wasn't like he was hurting her. It just felt so good when he touched her and it made her feel like nothing else in the world was as important. No matter how badly she wanted to be with him she wouldn't make herself that vulnerable yet.

"Won't happen again." He said quietly, running his hand through his hair right where her hands had been.

He said it like he meant it but even he didn't know if he trusted himself that much.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Blood Bank" by Bon Iver._

**Alright so as you guys can probably guess by what Isaac just said, the full moon is in a week which means that Lydia's party is coming up soon. DUN DUN DUN. haha I hope you liked this chapter and I hope that it gave you a better understanding into Carmen's character. I didn't want her to spill _everything _to Isaac in one shot because I'm planning on gradually letting her talk to him about it. Nobody ever really lets out their inner demons in one go so I wanted to make sure that it impacted the storyline.**


	16. Home

**Chapter 15**

_"Man, oh, man you're my best friend. I scream it to the nothingness. There ain't nothing that I need."_

"You going to Lydia's party tomorrow night?" Stiles asked Carmen, throwing pieces of popcorn up in the air so that he could catch them in his mouth. Most of them fell on his face and onto the floor. They were sitting in Scott's living room hanging off the couches and watching TV. She had never been to one of Lydia's birthday parties before so she had no idea what they were all about. The only thing she had heard was that they were always amazing and that it was at the top of the list of the celebration hierarchy.

She shrugged and grabbed another Oreo out of the container next to her. "I don't know yet. I'm kind of worried about Isaac." His first full moon would be tomorrow night and judging by what he had told her apparently he was supposed to be in incredible pain and agony. So, yes. She was pretty worried about him.

"Isaac is going to be fine." Scott assured her, flipping the channels on the TV back and forth because he couldn't find anything good on. "Once he learns to control the shift it'll be a lot easier." He wondered if things between him and Allison would have been different had she known he was a werewolf the whole time. Things had been cold with them since the night of the rave and he still hadn't apologized.

"I wanted to see him today, but he said that Derek doesn't want him near me until the moon passes." She grumbled, rolling her eyes. She was still undecided with how she felt about the Alpha. She was thankful that he took Isaac in and made sure he was safe, but she just always felt like he was somehow distant. Like he tried to care but it was physically impossible for him to do it.

"Nice to know we're Plan B." Stiles scoffed, shaking his head. He was the only person she'd ever met who was actually more sarcastic than she was.

"It's probably for the best." Scott ignored his best friend's response. For once Derek was actually right. There was something about Isaac that made him different from Erica and Boyd. He didn't know if that was good or bad.

"Yeah, plus if you see him tonight I'm pretty sure you can imagine what'll happen anyways. It'll be like last week but probably times like a thousand. So unless you're willing to put a leash on your little wolfy boyfriend so that he keeps it in his goddamn pants—" Stiles stopped talking when she threw an Oreo at his head with a scowl on her face. She really had to stop telling him such personal stuff.

"Wait, what happened?" Scott asked, looking at the both of them. Stiles kept his lips in a thin line and Carmen just pretended like she hadn't heard him. "Come on, tell me!"

"It's nothing, really." Her face started to turn red when it was brought up and she cleared her throat nervously, changing positions on the couch. She hung backwards over the armrest, hoping that the flow of blood to her head would help her stop feeling so anxious.

"They were making out and Isaac got a little too ahead of himself. She had to push him to make him stop." Stiles was like a brother to her even though they had only known each other for such a short amount of time. It was like they had been friends for their entire lives. They probably bonded over their mutual love of sarcasm. She threw another Oreo at his head and it bounced off and landed on the floor. Her aim was pretty good for somebody who was hanging upside-down. He picked it up and stuck it in his mouth, generating a disgusted look from his friends.

"Seriously? How bad did it get?" Scott couldn't even believe that it had happened. Even for a new wolf, Isaac had way better control over himself than Scott did when he first turned. It was strange to him that he could let go of his emotions that quickly. She groaned and smacked her forehead with her palm. She really didn't want to be talking about this, especially with him. She knew that even though now he at least trusted Isaac a little bit there was still a part of him that didn't whole-heartedly approve of their relationship.

"It's not a big deal." She covered her face and bent her arms backward to tie her long hair up into a bun so that it wouldn't get tangled up with her head being upside-down.

"It is a huge deal!" Stiles protested, throwing his arms up in the air. There was no way that she honestly thought it was as minor as she was trying to make it seem. "He—"

"He tried to take my bra off. That was it. He wouldn't stop so I pushed him. He apologized. Nothing. End of story." She pulled herself back up and glared at Stiles, who sunk lower into the couch across from her. She rubbed her neck awkwardly, still feeling the hickeys that Isaac had left on her. They were fading enough to be covered up with makeup but whenever she touched them it was like feeling his lips on her skin again.

"Yeah, after you told him to stop like five times!" He scoffed, rolling his eyes.

"It was actually more like two." She retorted, sticking her tongue out at him.

"Same difference." He mumbled, nibbling the rest of his Oreo. He was just concerned for her safety. He had never really been close to any girls before and he was an only child. He had the feeling the people would think it was dumb but he sort of saw Carmen as his only shot at being close to somebody other than Scott.

"Why didn't you tell me?!" Scott was bugging out right now. She acted like it wasn't a big deal when in reality he thought it was a huge deal. He couldn't believe that Isaac would have tried something so stupid, especially with his first full moon approaching. He could have ripped her throat out.

"Because it was supposed to be _personal._" She growled, barring her teeth at Stiles. He shrugged and continued to eat from his bag of popcorn. "I had it under control."

"But what if you didn't? What if he shifted? He could have killed you!" He was completely livid. If there was anybody who knew about keeping his emotions in check whenever he was with his girlfriend it was definitely Scott. He didn't want Isaac to make the same stupid mistakes with Carmen that he had made with Allison.

_"He didn't."_ She grit her teeth, signaling the end of the conversation. She could look out for herself and she definitely didn't need their relationship advice.

"You should really go to Lydia's party." Stiles said to change the subject once the silence between the three of them grew awkward. "I think you'd have a really great time." He wanted her to get Isaac off her mind for at least a little bit. She'd go nuts if she didn't stop worrying about him.

"Yeah, he's right. I don't want you to stay home freaking out about Isaac." Scott nudged her shoulder, making her sigh and roll her eyes. "The least you could do for us is get out of your house and have fun."

"I don't know," She said unsurely, "I don't have anything to wear." She picked at her fingernails absentmindedly, looking up at the two boys in front of her. They looked at each other and laughed before they jumped up from their seats and hooked their arms under hers to lift her up. "What are you...?" They both shushed her and dragged her out to Stiles's Jeep and sat her in the front seat while Scott sat in the back.

"We're taking you to the mall, what does it look like we're doing?" Stiles rolled his eyes, putting the car into gears and pulling out of the driveway. "We can't let you go to Lydia's party if you don't have anything to wear. Duh. What kind of friends do you think we are?"

"You have to promise you'll listen to our advice, though." Scott stuck his head in between them, looking over at Carmen with a goofy grin on his face. She raised an eyebrow in his direction. He couldn't be serious. "Just pretend we're like your fairy godmothers or something, you know?" Now it was time for both of her eyebrows to shoot up.

"Trust us. It's in the bag." Stiles nodded confidently.

* * *

The night of Lydia's party, Carmen paced around nervously in her heels while she waited for Stiles to pull up her driveway. She wasn't nervous because of the party, she was nervous because of Isaac. The full moon in the sky tonight was different than it usually was and she couldn't get him out of her head. He hadn't replied to any of the texts that she'd sent in the last hour but he had told her that Derek would be locking the pack up early just to be safe.

She was about to text him again when she saw the lights of the Jeep coming up her driveway and the sound of the horn. She grabbed her purse and Lydia's gift, deciding that Isaac would be okay for the night. Stiles got out of the driver's side and opened the backseat door for her with a smile. "Your chariot awaits, m'lady." He chuckled, closing the door when she got inside the car.

"Hear anything back from him yet?" Scott asked as they started the drive to Lydia's house.

"No," She said quietly, clearing her throat. "But I'm sure Derek has it under control." She _hoped _he had it under control. Isaac wasn't the only one he had to chain up. "Anyways, what did you get Lydia for her birthday?" For the rest of the night she promised herself that she would change the subject if the conversation ever touched on Isaac. The only reason she was going to the party was so that she could get him off her mind.

"I just got her a gift card to some place my mom picked out." Scott rolled his eyes, showing the envelope to her. "Stiles got her the thing that's taking up the whole trunk." He pointed to the gigantic square box right behind her head. He tried so hard to impress Lydia and it was pretty admirable. Obviously chivalry was not dead. "What about you?"

"I remember talking to her one time and she was complaining about how she didn't have purses to match a few outfits that she had so I just bought her a couple." She smiled, patting the boxes. She wasn't as close with Allison and Lydia as she was with Scott and Stiles, but they helped keep her intact sometimes when she just needed to get away from how crazy the world around her had become. She was glad to have such great friends around her.

They pulled up to Lydia's massive house and loud music could be heard from inside. Stiles parked on the front lawn and raced to the trunk to pull out his unnecessarily large present. His two friends tried to help him with it but they were waved off. "No, I got it. I can do it myself, I promise." He almost fell over a couple times so Carmen had to spot him while he walked to the door but he valiantly carried the box all by himself.

Scott rang the doorbell and Lydia opened it with a giant grin on her face. She had a tray of cups perfectly balanced with her other hand and Carmen knew that it wasn't a lie when people said Lydia loved to play the hostess. She gave Scott and Carmen cups of punch while she could only stare at Stiles trying to push himself and the box through her door.

"You talk to Allison lately?" Carmen asked Scott as they made their way through the kitchen and out back by the pool. There were lights and tables set up, filled with drinks and food. But no people.

He shook his head sadly. The whole situation with her had been bothering him so much lately. He felt like he was losing her. "Um...no. Not really." He kept looking over his shoulder to see if she was there and she never was. Some part of him dreaded seeing her and the other part wanted nothing but that.

She took a sip of her punch and was surprised by how good it tasted. "Did she make this herself?"

"Yeah...why?" Scott had put his plastic cup somewhere and forgotten about it. He was sick to his stomach about Allison. He didn't want to eat or drink anything.

"Nothing. It's just really, really good." She laughed, drinking until she saw the bottom of her cup.

* * *

_The song for this chapter was "Home" by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes._

**Sorry this chapter wasn't really all that productive (especially since there's a very minor amount of Isaac in it) haha. I just wanted to highlight Carmen's friendship with Scott and Stiles and I thought it was good to not focus on her and Isaac too much because it's not like she can be around him during the full moon anyways.**


	17. Angels

**Chapter 16**

_"And everyday, I'm learning about you. The things that no one else sees. And the end comes too soon, like dreaming of angels."_

Gold spilled into the bright blue pigment of Isaac's eyes and he could feel the effect of the full moon settling in on him. Every muscle of his body felt like it was being shredded apart and every single one of his bones felt like it was on fire. He screamed out in pain and pulled at the chains restraining him but they refused to give way. _Stay human,_ he begged himself, shutting his eyes tightly to search for something he could anchor himself to.

_"Isaac! Goddammit, can't you do anything right!?" His father screamed at him, throwing a white porcelain mug in the direction of his young son's face. Isaac ducked and covered his head, trying his best not to cry. He had been washing the dishes and his hands were shaking so much under his father's calculating eyes that he dropped a plate on the floor. It shattered into pieces and his father had sent his hand flying across his own child's face. _

_"I'm sorry, Dad!" He cried, bracing himself for the blows that he was about to have delivered to him. "I didn't mean to! I'll fix it!" He sobbed, collapsing into a heap as he could feel his stomach being impacted by the pressure of his father's fist. "I'll fix it, I promise! Dad!" _

_"You can't fucking fix anything, Isaac! Nobody in this world is going to ever want you! You're nothing! You're a burden to me!" Every day was the same. Every night was the same. He promised himself that he was going to get used to it and he promised himself that he'd just let whatever happened to him bounce off. But he absorbed everything. It was going to stay and it was going to stay forever._

_"I'm sorry, Dad! I'm sorry! I'm so, so...sorry..." He could feel himself fading into unconsciousness as he curled up into a ball on the cold kitchen tiles. He wondered when it would all end. He was afraid that it was never going to happen. He was afraid that he was going to be nothing but a punching bag for the rest of his life. _

He gasped in and he could feel his sharp teeth starting to push out. His father made him feel weak and useless for every single day of his life. He would take every single beating and every single night in the freezer because he couldn't defend himself. He was completely powerless against his father. His dad made him feel human.

No matter how much he reflected on the beatings he was given it wasn't enough to push him past the line. He needed something more. Something that would make him feel like a human and not like the monster he was transforming into.

_"Did you know," Carmen said, tracing her fingers over the veins in the back of his palm, "that you have 27 bones in your hand?" They were sitting on the couch in her living room watching TV and she was sitting in between his legs with her back against his chest. He raised one of his eyebrows at her and gave her a half-smile. _

_"And how do you know that?" He moved his head to the side and she could have sworn he looked exactly like a confused puppy. She laughed and nestled her head closer into the crook of his neck. He waited for her to give him an answer but he wouldn't have minded if she didn't either. He could have just stared at her for hours. Her strawberry blonde hair hung in wisps around her heart-shaped face and the ghost of a smile played on her lips and in her stark blue eyes. _

_"Troy used to make me memorize these stupid facts with him when I was a little kid." She rolled her eyes, sighing. He could feel her warm breath on the part of his chest that the neckline of his shirt left exposed. It raised goosebumps on his skin and made his stomach fill with butterflies. _

_"Well did you know," he ran his fingertips up the side of her arm, "that you're the most beautiful girl in the world?" She giggled and covered her face so that he wouldn't see her blush but he could still see the skin around her jawline flood with pink. He pried her hands from her face and held them in his own, entwining their fingers together. He bent his head down and softly kissed the back of her jaw, closing his eyes to just trap the moment in his mind. _

_"You're lying!" She laughed again when she felt his nose nuzzling the skin of her face. He just kept planting his lips up and down her cheek like he never wanted to stop. He sighed and tightened his arms around her, holding her as close to him as she could go. _

_"I would never lie to you." He replied softly. And he meant it. _

That memory would have been seemingly unimportant to anybody else but to him it meant the world. There were little things that tied him to her and made him feel whole and worth something for the first time in his life. He felt warmth and care from her that he didn't even know he could feel. For so long in his life he felt like he was never supposed to be happy, and she changed that for him. He wrapped his mind around how the heat of his skin flared up whenever she touched him or how much the sound of her voice drowned out all the other noise in the world.

He could feel the intense pain begin to subside and his breathing finally slow down. He was anchored.

* * *

"Have some more punch!" Lydia's high-pitched voice rang in Carmen's ears as she was handed yet another plastic cup filled with pink liquid. She looked at it reluctantly and moved to put it down on the table behind her.

"Lydia, I really don't think—" Something about it was making her feel disgusting. She couldn't even see straight.

"I _insist._" There was something in her smile that forced Carmen's hands to take the cup of punch and drink it. It was her 4th glass. She knew after the second one that it was doing something to her but she let it happen because she wanted to stop worrying about Isaac so much. The thought of him being in so much pain just drove right through her insides and made her stop thinking clearly. She shut her eyes and tried to push it out of her mind. Her head was killing her.

She stepped into the house and walked until she found a place where she could be alone. All she needed was to collect her thoughts.

"Carmen?" She heard a voice calling to her as she paced around in a small circle. "Carmen, are you there?" She looked up and choked a strangled breath out of her throat as her blue eyes widened in shock. Both of her parents were standing before her with bright smiles playing on their faces. They had their hands placed at their sides and she wanted so badly to reach out and touch them but it was like she was completely paralyzed.

"Mom...Dad...what are you doing here? What's going on?" Her voice started to shake and she could barely even form sentences. Everything about them was so real to her and they looked like they had never changed from the picture that she kept on her dresser.

"We're looking for Troy." Her mother replied, moving a lock of her strawberry blonde hair behind her ear. It was like Carmen was looking into a mirror. "Do you know where he is?"

"But you came to find me...why does he—" Troy didn't even _look _like her parents. He had the same hair color as their father but his eyes were brown. Nobody in her family had brown eyes except for her grandfather who died five years before Troy was born. And Carmen...Carmen looked like an Iver in flesh and blood with her ivory skin and blue eyes. But she never felt like she would truly be one. Her brother was always taken ahead of her even when he didn't deserve it. He just had the privilege.

"We didn't come to see you at all. We came to ask for your brother. The Princeton graduate. The surgeon. The prodigy." Her father's words bit into her like ice and they carried a venom that she could feel seeping through her veins. "Everything that you will never be." That was all anybody ever said to her. You're not Troy. You can't be him. You can't save lives. You can't make your parents proud. You can't do anything right.

She was frozen. Tears started to stream from the corners of her eyes and she started to shake her head. "I can't be him...I tried so hard to, but I can't...it's not fair...Mom, Dad—" She loved her brother too much to hate him for what he had done to her. It wasn't his fault. He was born that way. And she was born to only be compared to him for the rest of her life.

"You didn't try at all! You know what you did do, Carmen? _You killed us._ You killed your own parents!"

"STOP IT!" She screamed, just begging for it to all go away. It wasn't her fault. She had spent so long drilling that sentence into her head but somehow it felt like nothing would ever make her think it was actually true.

"Why did we even have a second child? We knew it was just cruel to even think that somebody would be able to hold a candle to our perfect son. He's everything anybody could ever want." Her mother laughed maliciously, her face suddenly morphing into an expression of hatred. "You stupid, stupid girl. It's best that we just...put you out of your misery."

Carmen's nose tickled and she breathed in the scent of gasoline. When she looked down it was in a pool around her feet and she watched as her parents' faces turned black and shriveled, with their hair and clothes crumbling to ash. As their hands disintegrated a single lit match fell to the floor and ignited the gasoline around her legs.

She felt herself falling backwards but she caught herself and shook her head viciously. What had just happened? It was like she had been in a dream. _A nightmare._

She ran back out to the party and tried to find Scott. Something terrible was going to happen. She could feel it in her gut. On her way out she walked by the punch bowl and something in it caught her eye. Small purple flower petals floated in the pink liquid and the overpowering scent was one she could only recognize as wolfsbane. She reached out to touch it when she felt somebody's strong grip around her wrist. "Don't touch it!" Scott said, pulling her away.

"Scott, look at it. There's...there's wolfsbane. She spiked the punch with wolfsbane." She looked up at him with panic in her eyes. He looked over her shoulder and his brown eyes widened when he realized that she was right. How could Lydia even have access to wolfsbane? There was no possible way...it couldn't be real...

"Guys, I can't find Lydia anywhere." Stiles ran up to them, nearly on the verge of hyperventilating. "Anybody who drank the punch is hallucinating like crazy. It's like they're on—"

"Wolfsbane?" Scott and Carmen said at the same time, showing him the punchbowl.

"We have to find Lydia. There's no way she could have access to this stuff. Something's going on." Scott tried to break them up to go and look for her again, but their trains of thought were cut short when they heard somebody screaming for help.

"HELP! I CAN'T SWIM! I CAN'T SWIM! STOP IT! LET GO OF ME!" They saw Matt kicking and screaming against two people who picked him up and threw him into the pool. He struggled to keep his head afloat in the water and he gasped wildly for any air he could find. The three of them could only stare as Jackson pulled him out of the pool and helped him to his feet.

"Oh my God..." Carmen's voice cracked and she covered her mouth with her hand. Scott and Stiles were completely shell-shocked. It was like their feet were nailed to the ground.

It was Matt.

_Matt was the kanima's master. _

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Angels" by The xx._

**I had a lot of fun writing this chapter. I just have an affinity for writing flashbacks haha. I think they're an important part to this story too because a lot of it relies a lot on how the past affects the character's actions in the present. I wish I could actually use all this skill to do my AP English summer work but I don't think that's going to happen any time soon haha. :)**


	18. Lover I Don't Have To Love

**Chapter 17**

_"But you, but you, you write such pretty words. But life's no story book. Love's an excuse to get hurt and to hurt."_

"Are you...texting somebody?" Isaac peeked his eyes open while he had his lips up against Carmen's neck. She had one of her hands on his bare back but her other hand was holding her phone. He groaned and rolled off her and onto the other side of the bed. "You gonna put your phone away?" He looked over at her, expecting her to shut it off so they could continue with what they had been doing for the past hour.

She knit her eyebrows together at the screen in confusion and it was like she didn't even hear what he said to her. There was something going on. Something bad. She pulled up the straps of her bra and looked around her room to find where Isaac had thrown her shirt. She found it on the floor nearly underneath the bed and she held it in her hands, still staring at the text from Stiles she had received an hour earlier.

**Stiles - **_Going with Scott and my dad to the sheriff's office. Looking at evidence to arrest Matt. Text back when you get this._

"Going somewhere?" Isaac asked her, propping himself up with his elbows. He tried to sneak a look at her phone but she moved it away from his invasive gaze. He had finally been given the opportunity to be a normal teenage boy with a normal teenage girlfriend and now it was about to be ruined.

"Stiles texted me like an hour ago saying that he and Scott were going with his dad to the sheriff's station. They said that they're gonna try to pin Matt down." She got up from the bed and shut off the loud music that was playing. He was still looking at her like he had no idea what was going on. Things were going so well between them. They had actually gotten to second base and they were going to be alone for three more hours.

"So then where are you going...? Sounds like everything's under control." He sat up on the bed and ran his hand through his hair, knowing that it was probably sticking up everywhere. He reached over and tried to take her shirt out of her hands but she moved away from him. He moved behind her and tried to kiss the side of her face, but she would dodge him every time.

"I replied to him but he hasn't said anything back. I texted Scott too. He didn't say anything either. They could probably be in trouble or something." She looked in her closet to find a pair of jeans but he leaped in front of her before she could get anything off a hanger. She put her hands on her hips and cocked her head to the side. "Could you move?"

"Uh, no. I'm not letting you go." He closed her closet doors and stood in front of her with his arms crossed in front of his broad chest. She laughed at him and tried to nudge him out of the way. He was refusing to move.

"Isaac, come on. It's not funny." Every time she tried to walk around him he sidestepped her and he put his hands on her upper arms to hold her in place. "Isaac!" Now he was really annoying her. There was no way she'd let him tell where she was going and where she wasn't.

"Do you think think I'm joking?" He stood his ground and held her gaze. She couldn't believe that he was actually being serious. People's lives could be at stake and he was playing a silly little game with her. "You are not leaving."

"Don't tell me what to do." She grit her teeth and went to find a pair of shoes. Everywhere she moved he was always in front of her, restricting her from doing much of anything. "They're my friends and if something is wrong then I have to help them." It was just like that night he locked her in the bathroom at Scott's house to protect her from what they were planning to do to Lydia. She had been completely shut off from the conflict. Her friends were in danger and she couldn't help them. She had felt so useless and so guilty for the days that followed. In those few days she hated Isaac. She refused to talk to him or even look at him because her friends were the most important things she had in the world and if he prevented her from saving them again she would never forgive him.

"If they're in danger then Derek is going to find some way to help them. I'm not going to let you get hurt." She moved to put her hands on him so she could push his emotions but by now he could read her like a book. He grasped her wrists in his hands and held onto them tightly so she'd be prevented from touching him. "Do _not _try to find a way out of this. I'm protecting you." To her it didn't really seem like that.

"They could be dying, Isaac. I have to help them." She begged, trying to twist her hands away from his grip. He was breathing in and out heavily as he tried to restrain her. She was putting him through so much pain. He had to be selfish about it. He knew Scott and Stiles were in trouble but he couldn't save them if it meant putting Carmen in danger. He couldn't let her leave him. "Please, just let me go." She had tears in her eyes but he forced himself to ignore them.

"I can't," His voice cracked and he shook his head. He was holding onto her wrists so tightly that she could feel her skin starting to bruise. He could feel his fingers breaking the capillaries on the surface of her flesh and he bit down so hard on his tongue he hoped to draw blood. He pressed her up against the wall so that she would stop kicking her legs around but she tried so hard to fight him off. "I won't let you leave so just stop it already and calm down." He tried to keep his voice even but knowing that he was making her so upset put him in a difficult position.

She shut her eyes tightly as she forced her knee up and felt it connect with his groin. He yelped and his grip slackened on her enough for her to get away from him and grab her keys. He ran after her down the stairs and jumped in front of her just as she slid the key into the lock. "Get away from me or I swear to God I will never speak to you again." Her words stung him like fire and he could feel his heart starting to tear. He stared into her eyes with nothing but sheer guilt and apology as he placed his hand on hers. "I'll push you, Isaac. Don't you dare think that I won't. Don't do it." He put every bias aside and forced himself to think about nothing but refusing her. She hated doing this to him. Her shaking hand rose to his face and her other hand was still on the key in the lock, but his hand was holding her fingers in place. _"Let me leave, Isaac."_ She could see no change in his eyes or in his face.

For the first time he had refused to let her in. He was doing it to save her. He was doing it because he couldn't bear to lose another person. "I'm sorry." His lips started to tremble as he moved her fingers away from the key and twisted the metal until the bow fell off, leaving the blade lodged in the lock. She gasped in and shoved him away, shaking the doorknob to no avail. There was no other way out of her house. Nobody could get in and nobody could leave. He had trapped her.

She screamed and banged against the door so hard that the skin on her knuckles was starting to peel away and become raw. He could only watch her sob and slide down into a heap, just like he was so used to doing every time his father beat him. He balled his fists again and again, telling himself that it was the right thing to do. It was the right thing to not let her leave. It was the right thing to protect her. "Isaac, I hate you." She looked at him with red-ringed blue eyes filled with nothing but rage.

He froze.

"I hate you so much," Her voice was hoarse but it was unwavering. His chest felt empty for the first time in months. He couldn't breathe. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat but his mouth was too dry for him to do anything. She rose to her feet and he could see the anger glowing in her eyes. If anything happened to Stiles and Scott she wouldn't have herself to blame. She would only have Isaac. And she didn't care. In that very moment she felt nothing towards him but absolute revulsion and animosity. Everything she had ever told him and everything he had ever been to her no longer existed.

"No, don't say that, please..." His voice grew higher in pitch and he started to shake his head. His lips trembled and his whole body wouldn't stop shaking. She meant it. She meant every word of it. All he ever did was make her feel useless. He was too selfish to ever let anything happen to her. "Carmen, don't say that..." He started to sob once the reality of her words set in. She was different. She was nothing like everybody else. He swore to himself that she was different. She wouldn't hurt him. "Don't..."

But it was exactly what she was doing right now. His heart was breaking into a million pieces.

"Get. Out." She growled, suddenly making his figure shrink. She never wanted to see him again. He hesitated for a moment and opened his mouth like he wanted to say something but she picked up the bow of the broken key and threw it at him. He felt it hit his collarbone and break skin that leaked the smallest amount of blood. "GET OUT!" She screamed, breaking into sobs again. He scrambled up the stairs and into her room where he threw open the balcony door and ran away.

All she could think about was her friends in danger. And how she could do nothing. _"You're nothing but a useless piece of shit." _The voice came back, hissing into her ear. _"You couldn't even push him. You are so weak." _She hugged herself tightly and rocked back and forth, grinding her teeth together to quell the anxiety rising inside of her. But now it was refusing to go leave her. It was only getting stronger. Now she didn't have Isaac to hold her and tell her that he wasn't going to leave her. She didn't hear the soothing sound of his voice in her ear or the comfort and security he gave her when he squeezed her hands.

She struggled up the stairs and into her bedroom, curling up into a ball on her mattress. It would go away. It would pass. _"Look at you. You're pathetic. You pushed him away. He's never coming back. Just like everybody else." _She felt like her heart had come up and blocked her throat. When she lifted her eyes to gaze out the open glass door, there was nothing but darkness on the balcony. There was something in her that hoped Isaac would be there, waiting for her. Waiting to comfort her and tell her that everything was going to be okay. But he was gone.

And she was alone.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Lover I Don't Have To Love" by Bright Eyes. _

**Today I got a huge spike in views so thank you so much to everyone who's been reading my fic! I'm sorry these chapters are kinda short but they get the point across and help with the build up. I'm already thinking of ideas for the sequel. :)**


	19. The Build Up

**Chapter 18**

_"I forgot to mention: that you would come back home when I call. You left no sign, nothing at all. I'm sorry you won't fit inside my heart. I wanted love without the build up."_

"I'm gonna stick a feeding tube in your stomach if you don't eat." Troy looked at his younger sister's pale face. Her chapped lips were drawn into a thin line and she had her arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes stared straight ahead like he was entranced in her own world, away from everybody else. He sighed and sat down on the foot of her bed. "Ever since we moved here...ever since we found out about the werewolves...it's like you're not even the same person anymore. I mean I've tried everything, Carm. I don't know what else to do."

"Finally given you something you can't fix, huh?" She mumbled spitefully, playing with her hands. The way she said it wasn't like every other time she'd joked around with her brother about the way he was. This time it was like she meant it with malice.

"Is this about Isaac?" Her body froze when her brother mentioned his name. She tightened her fists and exhaled deeply, knowing that she had cried too much for her eyes to be able to produce any more tears. "Because personally I think that not eating for two days because of a boy is absolute bullshit."

"I don't want to talk about him." She swallowed the sarcastic jab she was about to make at him for calling her the equivalent of a whiny teenage girl crying because her boyfriend dumped her. Isaac was different. And she wasn't a normal teenage girl. Stiles and Scott had ended up okay, but just barely. Matt and Jackson could have killed them. And she wouldn't have been around to do anything about it. "I'll go downstairs and eat after you leave for work." She just didn't want to be around Troy right now. He was only going to make her feel worse about everything that had happened.

"Does this have anything to do with how the key got broken off in the door a week and a half ago?" That night when he had come home from the hospital he found the lock unscrewed from the door and Carmen up in her room crying. She hadn't talked to him about what had happened but when she finally came around she lied and told him it was because she wanted to go see Allison and the key just broke off.

"You're going to be late for surgery." She refused to answer his question and he knew that there was no point in trying to make her talk if she wouldn't open her mouth. He was about to open his mouth to say something else but he heard somebody knocking at the front door. Troy rolled his eyes at his sister and went to go answer the door. She knew that they wouldn't be done talking but it would at least stave the conversation off until later.

He went downstairs and opened the door, shooting up both of his eyebrows when he saw Stiles standing outside. "Um...is your sister here? I need to talk to her. She's not answering her phone. " He shuffled his foot awkwardly. They had only met twice and both times had involved Troy finding Stiles digging around in the fridge for food.

"Yeah...I'll go get her." He turned towards the stairs to call her down but she was already walking down. It was the first time that she had set foot downstairs since her fight with Isaac. All she could think about was how torn apart he looked when she told him that she hated him. It was like she'd never seen a look that devastating on somebody's face before.

"We need to talk." Stiles said, looking at how depressed his friend had become. It was like the light was sucked out of her eyes and the color was gone from her skin. She almost looked like his mirror image. Over the past week and a half neither of them had gotten much sleep at all.

"You're right. I'm late for work." Troy mumbled as he rushed out the door, knowing that they would want to be alone to talk. Once he closed the door, Stiles buried his hands into his pocket and tried to figure out what he was going to say.

"You weren't answering your phone." He said quietly, walking over to her. He could see why that was. Her hair was tied up into a messy ponytail and she just looked sick. There was no other way for him to put it. "I was just getting worried."

"I don't know where he is." She looked down at her feet, shifting back and forth on her toes. She knew why he was here. If he was worried about her and wanted to really see her he would have been there days ago. "I haven't talked to him at all."

"Not even texted him or...?" He knew that they had fought the night he and Scott were at the sheriff's station. And she knew that Boyd, Erica, and Isaac had gone into hiding from the Argents that night.

"Nothing." She said almost inaudibly, almost as if she regretted doing it. Half of her hated him for keeping her away from saving Scott and Stiles but the other half was thankful that he had protected her even though he knew it would have meant she'd never forgive him for it. "I know you want to know where he is because of the game tonight...but I can't tell you. I haven't heard from him. I don't want to, either." She told herself that if Isaac cared about her and cared about what they had he would have called her. He would have seen her before he left. But he didn't. And she knew that things wouldn't be the same.

"Jesus, Carm! Would you just stop lying to yourself for like five minutes and tell me what's going on?" He snapped, making her jump. He was so used to her telling him everything about what happened that he couldn't help but feel hurt that she didn't talk to him about this. "I know that what happened with Isaac fucked you over, okay? But you don't hate him. The only reason you haven't talked to anybody in the past week and a half is because you're in love with him. Things will go a lot faster if you just say it out loud. _You love Isaac. _And you're worried about him."

Her eyes started to water and she sniffed as her nose started to leak. "That's not true." She shook her head, biting back the cries that were coming out of her throat.

"I have been in love with Lydia for like my entire life. Do you really think I can't tell when somebody feels like that?" He had never talked about it so seriously before. She knew about how he felt but only because he just mentioned it lightly sometimes.

"I can't be in love with him, Stiles. Not after what he did." She couldn't get him out of her head. She was supposed to hate him. She needed to hate him.

"You know what? I'm glad he stopped you from coming, okay!?" He threw his arms up in the air and shrugged, making her gape at him. "Because honestly, Matt probably could have killed you! And my dad was in danger and Scott's mom was in danger, and Scott was in danger—but not you. I'm glad that you didn't come down because if anything had happened to you I would have blamed myself for sending you that text. I would not have been able to live with myself." His eyes were starting to sting with tears and he knew that he was scaring her.

"Stiles—"

"I see how you are when you're with him, and I think _damn, I wish that could be me and Lydia._" She saw a tear fall from his eye and he wiped it away, trying to hold everything in. "He makes you happy. And it's killing you that he hasn't talked to you and it's killing you that you said what you did because you're in love with him. If you really hated him you'd be over and done with it. You wouldn't be acting like this. You want to be with him more than anything in the world right now, and I know that because I know the exact same feeling."

It was almost impossible for her to believe him when he said that he had known the feeling she was going through. It was like the most bone crushing agony in the world. She felt like she couldn't breathe because her chest was just so empty. "Then help me get it to go away." She pleaded, covering her face with her hands.

"What you're feeling right now means that you still care about him. And you shouldn't let it go away."

* * *

Isaac took in a deep breath and leaned against the metal table in Deaton's office as he watched Scott put away medical supplies. He couldn't have talked to anybody else about what was happening. He knew Derek would have wanted him to stay as part of the pack because he was the Alpha and he couldn't have talked to Carmen about because...she wouldn't talk to him. Scott was the only person he knew would give him an honest answer. "They're leaving, you know. Boyd and Erica. Tonight, during the game." He said quietly, making Scott turn his head.

"So why are you telling me?" He had more important things to think about than Boyd and Erica running away from Derek's pack. After Gerard had threatened his mother it was the only thing he had on his mind. He had barely even talked to Stiles since the incident at the sheriff's office, Allison hadn't said two words to him, and Carmen was ignoring everybody. He was getting ready for the floor to cave in beneath him because it seemed like everything was already falling apart.

"I...I'm not telling you, I'm asking you for your advice." Isaac tightened his jaw nervously, trying to find something to occupy his hands. Now Scott was really confused.

"From...me? Why?" He stopped what he was doing and turned around.

Isaac took in a deep breath and shrugged. "Because you...you just always seem like you wanna do the right thing?" There was something about Scott that just screamed trustworthy to him, and he didn't know what it was but it was there. He always knew that the only thing he was going to do was the right thing and he always put everybody else's interests in front of his own. Isaac craved to learn that.

"I usually have no idea what I'm doing. Actually, I always have no idea what I'm doing." He sighed, wondering why Isaac had even come here to ask him about something that he thought had already been answered. It's like something seemed to be holding him back.

He chuckled softly. "Do you wanna tell me what you're doing right now?" The more he thought about Carmen the more he thought about her relationship with Scott. How they were such close friends and how he managed to care so much for her but never got in the way of what she wanted. And Isaac was jealous of that. He couldn't seem to protect her without damaging what they had. This time he was afraid that he couldn't fix it.

"I'm not going anywhere, if that's what you mean. I have too many people who need me right now." _Need. _The word burned in Isaac's mind like a scar. Nobody needed him. Nobody wanted him. He was exactly where he had started off.

_"I hate you, Isaac." _

He wet his dry lips with his tongue and jammed his hands in his pockets. "Well, I, um...I guess that makes me lucky. Because I don't have anyone, so..." He trailed off and he could feel the tears start to well up in his eyes. He got up to leave, but Scott held his arm out. He sniffed in, digging his nails into his palms so that he could make himself stop crying.

"So are you gonna go with them?"

He took a deep breath in and nodded slowly. "Yeah. I think I am." Maybe another new start would do him some good. Third time's the charm.

"What about Carmen?" He knew about the fight they had and what had happened, but he hadn't talked to either of them about it. Stiles had seen her once but other than that she never replied to anybody else. "Haven't you talked to her about it?"

"No, I haven't." He looked down at his feet and bit down on his lip. "I haven't actually talked to her since that night. She hasn't tried to talk to me either so I don't think it really matters." It shouldn't have been any different than losing the other people in his life, but it was. It was nowhere near the same and the hole in his chest wouldn't be filled because he'd never find someone else to love like he loved her. He had let himself get too attached and now he was paying the price.

"I mean don't you think you should at least try?" Scott was completely flabbergasted. He couldn't believe that neither of them had talked to each other. It was like they were forcing themselves to stay away. If he knew anything about Carmen it was that she cared about Isaac more than she cared about herself.

"Scott, she said that she _hated me. _She got up and looked right in my eyes and said it straight to my face. She meant it. She doesn't want to be with me anymore." When he said it out loud he could feel himself start to break down. He had been avoiding it for days and days, hoping that it was only another one of his bad dreams.

"Then she's lying." He said simply, making Isaac turn his head upwards. "Look, I know her. And I know how much she cares about you. Maybe she sounded like she meant it just because she was mad at you, but I think that it's hurting her too. In fact, I'm _sure _that it's hurting her." He decided to forgo his personal bias against Isaac and do what he thought was best for his friend. And that was for them to be together. "You're not the only person she hasn't talked to since what happened with Matt at the sheriff's office. She hasn't talked to any of us."

"What? Do you know if she's okay, or if she's—" He stopped himself from talking. He had to stop it. He had to keep telling himself that it was over, but it was close to impossible. The worst thing about his pain and his heartbreak was that it demanded to be felt. It was like the world would stop turning if he didn't feel an unknown force ripping his heart into shreds and making him feel pathetic. "I...I can't. I can't keep doing this."

"Isaac, she was just angry. You need to talk to her about it. You had good intentions, you just didn't go about them the right way." But Isaac knew that things were hardly that simple.

"It's not just that...she...I just feel like she won't let me in. Whenever we get close enough to talking about what happened to her and with her parents, it's like she seals herself back up. I try so hard to help her but she won't let me." He felt palpitations in his heart and he got the overwhelming urge to just throw up every single one of his organs. It was the most sickening feeling in the world. "I can't even protect her without hurting her." He laughed bitterly, shaking his head. She was his and he felt the instinct to protect her nearly every minute he was around her. It wouldn't go away.

"Sometimes you just gotta let go and you have to trust her. She's not gonna run off and get herself killed. She thinks things through, you know." Scott chuckled. "I mean, she's got a brother that she cares a hell of a lot about. He's the only family that she has and putting herself purposely in danger without a good reason isn't something that she would do."

"But how can you just let that happen? If something happened to her then I wouldn't be able to forgive myself." He ran his hands through his hair and he couldn't stop replaying her voice screaming at him. She was so filled with rage and hatred...when she threw they key at him it was like he was left completely powerless again. He raised his hand and rubbed his fingers over the skin on his collarbone where the bruise had been. It wasn't visible anymore because it had healed but he could still feel it there. "I love her too much."

Scott could see the genuine pain in Isaac's eyes and he knew what it felt like to be pushed away by the people you love. Nobody deserved for that to happen. "If you love her then why are you leaving with Erica and Boyd?"

"Because as long as I'm here and she won't talk to me then there's no point in staying." He said bluntly, sucking in a deep breath. "And if I don't leave and the Argents still want me dead then I'm putting her at risk. And I can't protect her." It was too difficult to accept what was going on but he had to force himself to do it otherwise he'd never recover and he'd be holding himself back. He turned to leave but Scott reached out and grabbed his wrist. Isaac tried to look away but there was something in Scott's eyes that forced him to stare back.

"Then fix what you have."

* * *

_This chapter's song was "The Build Up" by Kimbra._

**Alrighty I made sure to give you guys a long chapter and I'm pretty satisfied with how this turned out! I went on a crazy updating spree omg. When I started writing I realized how much I could relate Stiles/Carmen and Scott/Isaac to each other so I lucked out pretty well haha. I've been getting a crazy amount of hits lately and I'm really appreciative and I hope that it keeps up. Please don't forget to review because I love hearing from you guys. :)**


	20. Bottom of the River

**Chapter 19**

_"Hold my hand, oh baby it's a long way down to the bottom of the river. Hold my hand, oh baby it's a long way down, a long way down."_

"You should come to the game with me tonight." Lydia said, admiring the new coat of bright purple nail polish she had just applied to her fingers. Carmen looked up from the fashion magazine she was reading and pursed her lips. "I think it'll be good for you. You know, to support Stiles and Scott. They're your friends, aren't they?"

"Yeah, but—"

"This is the first time that you've left your house in almost two weeks. You're going to the game." Her mind was already made up. Allison wasn't returning any of her calls or texts so she assumed that Carmen would be completely available for all intents and purposes. And that included going to the lacrosse game with her.

Even though she knew he was on the run, Carmen's stomach turned at the very thought of seeing Isaac there. Since her talk with Stiles that morning she had cleared up a lot of the mess she had going on with her feelings but it didn't matter anyways. They were over and done with. He was leaving and she was staying. There was no other way to make things work and she decided that it would be for the best. "Lydia, I really don't think that I should go."

"If this is about Isaac—"

"Not about Isaac." Carmen wagged her finger, telling Lydia that she was treading on some increasingly thin ice. Apparently word had gotten around to everybody in the group about what had happened and again she blamed herself for telling Stiles. She just couldn't help herself. She loved the kid too damn much.

"Anyways," Lydia rolled her eyes, "you're going to find somebody else. You're...I think you're really pretty, Carmen. Okay? There's always next year for you to find another boyfriend and maybe this time you'll have a normal one." She wanted her friend to be able to do what she never could. Get over somebody. She thought about Jackson every day and every night and she couldn't stop thinking about him. He would constantly be on her mind whether she liked it or not.

She didn't want anybody except for Isaac. "If it'll make you happy, I'll go." She sighed, setting the magazine down on the table next to her. "Is Allison coming?"

Lydia stopped painting her nails and she shook her head. "No, she's not. I haven't heard from her." In that moment the façade of joy and obliviousness that Lydia put on all the time slid right off her face only to reappear again. She was concerned for her friend's safety and nothing could mask that. "But I'm sure she's going to turn up."

Carmen knew that Allison wasn't going to show. She was too busy hunting down the rest of Derek's pack. She wanted all of them dead. "Yeah, I think so too."

* * *

"Are these seats taken?" Lydia giggled, smiling when she saw Mrs. McCall and Mr. Stilinski sitting down next to each other on the bleachers. They shook their heads and Lydia pulled on Carmen's arm to sit down next to her. "See, aren't you glad that you came?" She saw Stiles and waved at him with a smile that put him in shock for a couple of seconds.

"Yeah, I guess that I am." She laughed, finally feeling a little bit better since everything else that had happened.

Stiles sat down next to Scott on the bench and made sure that his cleats were laced up. He didn't even know why he was doing it. It wasn't like he was supposed to play anyways. "I talked to Carmen about what happened with her and Isaac today." He said, leaning back.

"And how'd that go?" By looks of things she looked like she was pretty happy to go out somewhere. She seemed pretty invested in conversation with Lydia about something.

"She's still pissed at him, albeit less pissed than she was before." Stiles shrugged, sticking out his bottom lip. "And she's in love with him. So, you know. Normal stuff."

"Isaac came to see me today at Deaton's." Since the topic arose he just thought he'd go along with the conversation.

"And what did he say?" Stiles thought he would have been halfway to Minnesota with Erica and Boyd by now.

"That he's in love with Carmen." Scott chuckled. Sometimes the world worked in mysterious ways.

Stiles scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Teenagers," he mumbled under his breath, "they get to be a handful." Suddenly he felt somebody grab the back of his jersey. He saw Coach Finstock behind him, staring at him with his bulging eyes. "Uhhh...can I help you with something, Coach? Does somebody need a Gatorade or—"

"Get on the field, Stilinski. I'm putting you in for Greenberg." He couldn't believe what he was hearing. He thought somebody had just slapped him across the face.

"Wait, what? What do you mean I'm going in? Like...like on the field?"

"Just put your helmet on and go!" Finstock shook him, making sure to rattle his brain around in his head. Hopefully it would turn something on that wouldn't make him a complete failure during the game. Stiles stumbled to his feet and got his lacrosse stick and helmet together as he bounded towards the field.

"Oh my God, what's he doing?" Carmen asked, noticing that Stiles and his skinny legs were running onto the grass.

"I...I think he's playing." Lydia met her gaze they looked equally shocked. Stiles never played. _Never. _The whistle blew and they braced themselves for either the most brilliant thing they were ever going to see in their lives or possibly the most excruciatingly painful experience they would see for years to come.

They watched again and again as Stiles got knocked to ground by players who were at least twice his size. "I can't watch this." Carmen covered her face, shaking her head in complete embarrassment. Lydia looked away from the field and towards the bench, where something caught her eye.

"I don't think you should watch the bench either."

"What? Why no—" She uncovered her face and turned her head, looking over towards where Scott was sitting. Her heart rose into her throat. "Isaac..."

"You came back?" Scott asked, in total disbelief as he watched Isaac lace his cleats up. "I thought you were leaving with them! I can't believe you came back to help!"

Isaac chuckled. "I came to win." His lips curved into a charming half-smile. He looked around for Gerard and instead he saw the person he was really looking for the entire time. "She came?" His voice cracked just at the sheer joy he felt in his chest again. He couldn't stop staring at her. It wasn't like he wanted to look any place else. It was the look of concentration on her face that he loved so much. The way her eyebrows knit together and the way she pursed her lips...he couldn't help but study her.

"Isaac..." He heard a voice calling to him. "Isaac, I know you can hear me."

He grit his teeth and balled his fists angrily. It was Gerard.

"Congratulations on showing your courage! I must say that it's very admirable you would come with Scott to defend all these poor, innocent humans." Isaac could feel the veins in his neck bulging out as he felt the ice in Gerard's words send chills up his spine. "But wait...not all of them are completely helpless, now are they? They're all the same...except for one. Ah, yes. The beautiful girl that you've had your eyes on since she arrived here. The alpha human with the bright blue eyes."

He closed his eyes tightly and dug his fingernails into the flesh of his knee, hoping he could bleed to relieve some of the pressure that was building underneath the surface of his skin. Not again. It couldn't be happening again...not after he had warred with himself over the choice to stay or the choice to go. Not after he had made the decision to fix things because he knew that he had it in him.

"Young love is enchanting, is it not? And the urge to protect those you love is always much stronger than any other instinct you have. You just couldn't stay away from her, could you Isaac? You couldn't let her go. I can see why. Her ability is close to one in a million, you know. Incredibly unique and incredibly unaware. Her potential is...spectacular." He chuckled to himself, like he still didn't believe it. "Once she discovers what she's capable of, she won't be able to stop. I should have killed her the moment I found out. But who knows? Maybe I'll finish the job and have Jackson kill her tonight."

Isaac's insides boiled with animosity and he forced himself to anchor otherwise he would shift in that moment and rip somebody's throat out. He wanted Gerard dead. He wanted him to drown in his own blood and scream for help.

"So what'll it be, Isaac? How are _you _going to defend the one you love?"

He growled, grabbing his helmet. He was going to fight. He shot up off the bench and jogged onto the field, making sure to spread his teeth into a wide grin once he looked at Jackson. He'd end up getting Scott on the field no problem. He had some pretty strong motivation.

"Um...Carmen, your boyfriend—" Lydia started, but was cut off abruptly.

"Not my boyfriend." She corrected her friend, clearing her throat nervously. All she could do was watch as one by one, Isaac ran down players on his own team and made them fall like dominoes.

"Yeah, well whatever he is...he's crazy."

"Lahey! What the hell is your problem!?" Coach Finstock screamed, generating a cheeky smile and a shrug from the young werewolf. Again and again the referee's whistle blew with each player Isaac took off the field. Until he collided with Jackson. And the whistle blew for him.

"Oh, God...no..." Carmen threw her purse down and ran down from the bleachers and onto the field to where Scott was kneeling over Isaac. His eyes widened when he saw her next to him and she pulled his helmet off so that she could get a better look at his face. "I thought you were running..." She put her hand on his cheek and he gasped in sharply, feeling a stark contrast of numbing pain because of the kanima venom and slow burning in the pit of his stomach because she was touching him.

"I...I couldn't leave. I h-had to fix it. I-I had to make it work." He stuttered, trying his best to lift his arms so that he could touch her. But the poison was spreading and he was becoming paralyzed.

"Jackson nicked him on the way down. Stay with him. Make sure he's safe." Scott put his hand on Carmen's shoulder and she nodded quickly, watching as a few volunteers lifted Isaac's body up onto a stretcher. On the way to the locker room she helped him take off his gloves and the extra padding he had around his arms.

"Everything is going to be fine, Isaac. I promise." She wrapped her hand around her fingers, nodding at him once he was set down on a bench. "I'm gonna go get rid of these." She laughed softly, waving his pads around. When she went to go find his bag so she could put them away she heard a crash and a groan of pain. "Isaac...?"

"Carmen, I'm fine...don't...!" But it was too late. She rounded the corner and Gerard and two other men dressed in nothing but black stood before her. Isaac was crawling towards the showers, inching himself forward with his arms because he couldn't move his legs. She ran to him and lifted his arms over her shoulders, trying her best to catch her breath under his weight.

"I told you young love was a powerful thing, didn't I, Isaac?" Gerard laughed as Carmen struggled to pull Isaac with her. He wasn't doing her any favors. Half of his body was dead weight. "Look at her, trying her best to save a lost cause." He pulled his sword out of its leather sheath and watched it glisten in the moonlight let in by the windows. It scraped on the locker room's floor, leaving scratches in the hard concrete. "Haven't you ever heard the expression, _kill two birds with one stone_?"

"I won't let him hurt you, I promise." She pulled him up to his legs and he could feel them coming back to him as she propped him up against the sink. Her hand found his and she squeezed it tightly, trying to calm her racing heart. She backed up against his body even farther and braced herself for what was coming. "I promise, I promise." She shut her eyes tightly and moved her head to the side so that she could press her forehead against his jaw. One last feeling of comfort. One last feeling of knowing that somebody needed you. One last moment for her to know that even if she died she would be doing it for a person she cared about. Somebody she loved.

_"She's not gonna run off and get herself killed. She thinks things through, you know."_

When she opened her eyes back up she saw Scott standing behind Gerard with his eyes the bright color of gold.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Bottom of the River" by Delta Rae._

**When my English teacher told me that authors usually put things like parallels and symbolism into their stories on purpose I thought she was lying. There was no way somebody could possibly think all that through and then write it as they went along. Well now I know that she was right! haha The fact that I actually ended up using so much parallelism is a little frightening to be honest. I'd love to see if you guys can find some of it. ;)**


	21. A Wolf At The Door

**Chapter 20**

_"I keep the wolf from the door, but he calls me up, calls me on the phone. Tells me all the ways he's gonna mess me up; steal all my children if I don't pay the ransom. But I'll never see them again if I squeal to the cops." _

Everything seemed to go in slow motion as Carmen watched Jackson die. She watched Scott's mother try in vain to pump his chest to start his lungs up again and watched a completely hysterical Lydia attempt to give him mouth-to-mouth. It was like she was caught in a dream. But it didn't turn into a nightmare until she heard Sheriff Stilinski's voice.

"Stiles!? STILES!? WHERE THE HELL IS MY SON!?"

Her heart stopped. Jackson may have been dead, but Stiles was gone. Her best friend was missing. She started to hyperventilate and her mind was racing with all the things that could have happened to him. There was no way he had run off. Somebody had to have taken him. Somebody had to have been holding him somewhere. "Hey, hey...look at me...look at me..." Isaac's voice called out to her. She could feel his hands on her shoulders and he was looking in her eyes, trying to calm her down. "We're going to find him." He nodded at her, making sure that she nodded with him. "We're going to find him." He repeated softly, knowing how close she was to Stiles.

"Team to the locker room now!" Coach Finstock yelled to everybody out on the field. They made a beeline for the gym building, but when Carmen tried to follow in after them he held his arm out to her. "_Boys' _locker room, Iver."

"Um...and why should that matter?" She needed to get in there to talk to Scott and Isaac, and she needed to talk to Sheriff Stilinski about Stiles. She was getting into the locker room. She tried to sidestep Finstock, but he was a lot faster than she had anticipated.

"Because there are boys in there and you clearly aren't a boy, Iver. Obviously."

"Female sports reporters have been going into men's locker rooms for a couple of decades now. I think we've established the fact that a lot of non-boys can go into the boys' locker room. And in case they feel the need for a little indecent exposure, then I think they know what towels are." She grit her teeth and rolled her eyes, looking up at him. His mouth fell open and he pushed the door open for her. Had she pushed him? She didn't even touch him to do it. That had never happened before. Maybe some people were more easily manipulated than others. When she walked into the room every guy stared at her but she stood her ground and coughed awkwardly. She peered around the lockers to try and find Isaac and Scott, and she saw them talking to each other. In jeans. Without their shirts on. She cleared her throat and once they both looked up and saw her they scrambled to clothe themselves. "Seriously? I'm not a prude." She rolled her eyes, making Isaac form a smirk on his face.

"Definitely not a prude." He chuckled, shaking his head. She sent him daggers with her eyes and he backed off a little bit. Sheriff Stilinski ran up to them with his notebook in hand and he looked as overwhelmed as was humanly possible. His only son was missing and he had a dead teenager to take care of. It was a lot to handle.

"I, um...I have to meet with the medical examiner about what happened to Jackson and I sent out an APB on Stiles. I found his Jeep in the parking lot, so...um, that means that...well, I don't really know what it means." She knew that feeling all too well. He was trying to force himself to not fear for the worst. "But if he answers anything, email, phone, _anything—"_

"Then we'll call you." Isaac's voice was quiet and Carmen could tell that he was thinking about something by the look on his face. He saw how much Mr. Stilinski loved his son. He had longed to feel something like that for so long and now he never could. She trailed her fingers down and they met with his hand. "Thanks." He mumbled to her as he could feel his anxiety begin to dissolve.

The locker room started to clear out so Isaac walked her to the corner where they could talk in private. "What's up?" She asked him, trying to seem as nonchalant as possible. It wasn't working very well.

"We never...um, got the chance to talk about what happened the other night." He played with her hands and looked around nervously like he was thinking about saying something but was afraid to do it.

"We were in a bit of a compromising situation, in case you hadn't noticed." She raised an eyebrow at him. He wanted to talk about this _now? _There had to have been something else on his mind.

"I'm sorry." He blurted out suddenly, tightening his lips together. "I...I'm sorry that I stopped you from going to help Stiles and Scott. It was selfish of me and I shouldn't have broken the key in the lock. I just didn't want you to get hurt and I didn't know what else I could do."

She nodded slowly and bit down on her bottom lip. "I'm sorry, too. It would have probably been a lot better if I hadn't been so stubborn about it, and I...I don't hate you, Isaac. I shouldn't have said it the way I did. I shouldn't have said it at all." She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and looked down at her feet. Before she could look up at his reaction he had his arms around her, hugging her tightly. She laughed quietly and hugged him back, nestling her face in his shoulder.

"So...we're um, we're okay now, right?" He asked, pressing his forehead against hers.

"Yeah, we are." She thought it was funny that even with the reassurance of an apology he didn't think it meant reconciliation. It was like he was always unsure of things that were sure, like he was always expecting things to fall apart. They walked back to Scott, and were surprised to see that he had already ripped the door off Stiles's locker. He handed Isaac one of Stiles's gym shoes while he took a shirt.

"Wait, we're gonna find him by scent?" Isaac asked, getting a disgusted look on his face when he breathed in the smell of the shoe. Scott nodded and pressed the shirt to his face, getting a good read on his best friend's scent. "But how come you get a shirt and I get a shoe?"

"Thank God I'm not a werewolf." Carmen blew hot air out of her mouth, shaking her head. She could already smell what was coming from the shoe and she wasn't even holding it. She couldn't imagine what it smelled like to them.

Scott heard somebody walk in and instinctively he moved himself of Isaac and Carmen as he turned around to face Derek and somebody he thought was long gone forever. _Peter Hale. _"Holy shit." His eyes widened and he had to blink a few times like he thought it was just a hallucination.

"Derek, now why didn't you make _her _part of your pack instead of those ridiculous children?" Peter said, pointing straight at Carmen. She could feel some sort of arrogance and connivery radiating off him...it was almost repulsive. "Could you imagine having an alpha human werewolf with her pathokinesis? The possibilities could be endless, Derek!" He was absolutely fascinated with Carmen's presence. He had never seen anything like her before.

"How do you—" She could feel Isaac's shoulder pressing into her like he wanted her to stand behind him, but she wasn't going to cower like a little girl.

"There's only one explanation for the scent of the field behind my childhood home being in this room right now. It's something that I've longed to smell for years. There is only one explanation for it, and that's you, my dear." Of course. To allow targets to be easier manipulated she gave off a scent that would have attracted them to her. It's the reason why Scott thought she smelled like Allison when he met her, or the reason why she actually smelled like she thought she did whenever Isaac was around. Her scent was anything that anybody wanted it to be.

"We're not here to talk about her, Peter." Derek growled, walking closer to the group of teenagers. "We're here to talk about Jackson."

"Um...who is he?" Carmen and Isaac asked at the same time, looking to Scott for some help.

"Peter. He's Derek's uncle. A little while back he tried to kill us all then we set him on fire and Derek slashed his throat." Scott rattled off, sort of like he was tired of hearing the story himself.

Isaac nodded and swallowed a lump in his throat. "Well...that's good know." Peter raised his hand up as a greeting and it only worked to make matters more painfully uncomfortable.

"How is he even alive?" They had killed Peter and buried him underneath the floorboards of the Hale house. He was dead. They made sure of it. There was no way he was back. It was impossible.

"Look, that's not important." Derek sighed heavily, shaking his head like he didn't believe it either. "The short version of it is that he knows how to stop Jackson. Maybe even save him."

"Well then you're a little late for the party." Carmen said, sharing a glance with the two werewolves next to her. "Jackson's dead." Shock covered Peter's and Derek's faces like they were almost scared that Jackson was dead instead of being thankful because the kanima was gone. "Somehow you two don't look as relieved as we are about this."

"That's because we aren't." Peter shook his head, moving closer to them. Their first instinct was to back away, and he raised his hands up in apology. "If Jackson is dead, he's dead because Gerard wanted him to be. And Gerard _always_ has a plan."

_"Haven't you ever heard the expression, kill two birds with one stone?"_

Just remembering those words sent shivers down Isaac's spine. Gerard had toyed with him to get him on the field on purpose. He knew that threatening Carmen would have gotten him angry and would have gotten him to retaliate. And somehow he had known that Carmen would have followed Isaac into the locker room to make sure that he was safe. He did it all so that it would be easier to kill both of them at the same time.

"It'll just be a lot easier to talk on the way to the house." Derek said, ushering them all out of the door. This may have been the end of Gerard's plan for Jackson, but it wasn't the end of his plan for himself.

"I don't like him." Isaac mumbled into his girlfriend's ear as they walked towards Derek's car. "Stay away from him."

"I can protect myself. You know, if it wasn't already completely obvious." She rolled her eyes, sliding in next to him on the black leather seats. Scott sat in the passenger seat while Derek drove, which meant that Peter would have to sit on the other side of her. "And I don't think you remember, but telling me to _stay away _from somebody doesn't usually work." She smirked.

"That's different." Isaac mumbled under his breath as Peter got into the car with them. "And _I'm _not _him._" He didn't know if it was because Derek was his Alpha or not, but the inherent distrust of Peter had already been planted in his body and he didn't seem apt to grow out of it too soon.

"So Carmen, is it?" Peter asked her, attempting to make conversation with the young girl while the car shifted into gear and began the drive to the Hale house. She nodded unsurely and found herself gripping onto Isaac's knee. "Your parents must be incredibly proud of your gift. Pathokinetics being so rare in this world—"

"My parents are dead." She cut him off abruptly, staring straight ahead at the road. She wasn't in the mood to talk about such a sensitive subject with somebody she barely even knew. She didn't even talk to Isaac about her parents. Peter opened his mouth to resume the conversation but he bit on his tongue when he noticed Isaac staring him down. "House fire." She replied simply, making him lean back in deep thought. There was something in her words that provoked curiosity within him. House fire or _arson_? Just like his family. He knew of a trigger-happy Argent who loved to set things on fire. Carmen didn't know who killed her parents, but Peter did.

As Peter thought about the reason the Argents wanted Carmen's family dead, she was thinking about the context of Peter's words. What did he mean when he said that pathokinetics were "rare"? She thought there had to be at least a million other people with her ability. She didn't consider herself special because she wasn't. She was alpha human, same like all the others. No different. No more powerful. She was the same.

She didn't trust Peter and she knew that if Derek hated him then he was bound to be nothing but bad news. But he knew something about her that she didn't. And she was determined to find out.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "A Wolf At The Door" by Radiohead. _

**By now ya'll have probably realized that I have a huuuuge thing for writing backstories and Carmen's back story behind her family/ability is going to be a huge tie-in with the last chapters of this fic and leading into the sequel. SPEAKING OF WHICH, I've already made a cover image for the sequel and I'm excited for you guys to see it when it comes out! :)**


	22. Kids With Guns

**Chapter 21**

_"Kids with guns, easy does it, easy does it, they got something to say no to. And they're turning us into monsters, turning us into fire, turning us into monsters."_

"He's definitely not dead." Carmen mumbled, leaning over Jackson's body so she could observe the cocoon he was becoming encased in. She could smell something on him that wasn't anything like the pheromone he had on him during that day in the library, but it was still something strange. It was almost like he was _hibernating_. Like he was preparing for something.

_"Okay, kiddo. Listen to me. This is important stuff," Her dad sat her down in his study and put his hands on her shoulders. "This is going to help you, trust me." She nodded and pumped her legs up and down, her feet not long enough to even touch the ground. She was average height for a 7-year-old, but the chairs were just too high. _

_"Uh, sure. I guess." She looked over her shoulder and saw her mother in the room across the hall, folding laundry. Carmen could tell that she was listening. She always was. She folded her hands in her lap and listened to what her father had to say. _

_"Humans and animals secrete these things called pheromones, Carmen. It's a chemical that triggers a social response from other things of the same species. With your ability, you can smell them. You can notice them." He started pacing around the room, fidgeting with his hands. "There are ten main pheromones..." She listened intently, feeling a slight pride in the fact that her father was even talking to her like she was an adult. Like she was smart enough to understand what he was saying to her. Like she was Troy. _

_"There are aggregation pheromones, which are used when the organism is threatened. They act as a means of defense to ward off potential predators. These are similar to alert pheromones, which are sort of like a chemical signature when the organism feels fear. It's like a sort of 'fight or flight' response."_

_He continued to pace around the room using his enhanced sight to inspect the spines of the books on the shelves that were supposed to be out of reach unless a ladder was used. The looked used. Especially the ones concerning werewolves. Somebody had taken a fascination with the supernatural and it had to have been his son. _

_"Then we have the pheromones that elicit change in an organism, such as primers. They are secreted when they trigger a change of developmental events in the organism's life. Sort of like when a caterpillar turns into a butterfly, but not exactly the same."_

"Oh my God, he's changing...it's like some sort of metamorphosis..." That was the reason he was encasing himself. He wasn't hibernating. He was evolving. He was secreting primer pheromones. "He's getting ready for something..." She was about to lean in closer to his face when he opened his mouth and snarled at her with his black, razor sharp teeth. Isaac quickly yanked her away and kept his arm on her to make sure she didn't move any closer.

"Mom, now would be a fantastic time to zip." The fear in Scott's voice was clearly evident as he nudged his mom to seal up the black body bag. She rolled her shoulders back and took a deep breath in, carefully picking up the zipper and gently sliding it up the rest of the way. Jackson was starting to growl and he continued to barre and snap his teeth. "Zip, Mom, zip!" Scott yelled, breathing a sigh of relief when she finally got it all the way up.

"Definitely not dead." Isaac shook his head, gulping. "Is Derek saying anything that's remotely useful?" He kept his eyes glued to the bag, noticing that the body would move every few moments like it was starting to break out of its shell.

"He's saying that Jackson is like...evolving or something, I don't know what it means—" Carmen grabbed onto his wrist and pierced his eyes with hers.

"Scott, get him out of here. _Now_." Her voice and Derek's voice over the phone echoed the exact same sentiment, and without hesitation Isaac and Scott picked the bag up off the metal table and began to carry it out of the room. She ran ahead of them and spotted them out of the parking lot, guiding them as they pulled Jackson out of the hospital.

"Come on, come on...oh, shit." She mumbled, pressing her hands into Scott's back to make him stop moving. There was a car pulling up to them, and she could see who the driver was. It was Allison's father. Instinctively everybody backed up when he got out of the car, but he didn't seem like he was in the mood to hurt anyone. Her first move was to protect Isaac because she knew that ever since Allison's mother had died, the Argents had made it a priority to hunt down Derek's pack and make them pay for what their Alpha did.

"Relax. I'm not here to kill anybody." He put his hands up, resting his eyes on Scott. He looked as desperate as they come. "We have a common enemy." He sighed.

"We're trying to get Jackson out of here so that—"

"I wasn't talking about Jackson." He shook his head, trying to figure out how he was supposed to say this. "I'm talking about Gerard."

That's when they knew what he had come to them for. He needed help. He needed to save Allison from being manipulated from Gerard. That was the only reason she had been acting so strange ever since her mother died. It was the only reason she wanted Derek and the rest of his pack dead. She wanted them to die because Gerard wanted them to die.

"We'll take my car to get to them. It's faster." Chris said as he helped Scott carry Jackson's body into the trunk of his black SUV. Carmen and Isaac got into the car and contemplated what was going to happen to them if somehow Jackson got let loose again and the kanima evolved. There was no way to defeat it, especially not in its advanced form. They'd probably die trying to kill it.

"Isaac?" She called his name softly, making him turn his attention to her face. He raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement and she took a deep breath in. "If anything with Jackson doesn't go like it's supposed to, and something happens...I love you." The words came out of her mouth like it was the most difficult thing in the world and Isaac thought back to the ease that she used to say that she hated him. But maybe it had been easy because she hadn't meant it. And maybe this had been painful because it was true.

He lifted her hand up to his lips and kissed the back of her palm, caressing it with his thumb. He couldn't remember the last time somebody had told him that they loved him. Maybe it was his mother just before she died. Or maybe it was his brother Camden before he got shipped off overseas to never come back again. He didn't know. But now it didn't seem to matter anyways because to him their love was gone and they were dead. This love was current and it was alive. He wanted it to stay that way. "I love you too."

* * *

"Stay in the car, okay?" Carmen looked up at Isaac with one of her eyebrows raised and look that said "you're a fucking moron". He groaned, knowing that even though he really didn't want it to be, this was going to be the first step for him to let go a little bit. "You can watch." He rolled his eyes, wagging his index finger at her. "But I swear to God if you try to fight even a little bit I'll have a stroke."

"Don't get your panties in a twist, Isaac." She stuck her tongue out at him. She didn't know why he felt the need to defend her from everything. It made her feel like he didn't believe in the fact that she wasn't completely helpless. Sort of like he didn't take her seriously. They walked into the warehouse with Derek and he unzipped Jackson's body back and everybody who had seen him at the hospital noticed that his transformation was almost complete. The shell of his venom was almost completely dissolved and nearly half of his face was covered in scales. "Aren't we supposed to wait for Peter and Lydia?" She could tell by the way Derek was looking at Jackson that something had changed.

"Derek, what are you doing?" Scott noticed the look too, and he knew exactly what was going on. "You said you knew how to save him!"

"We're past that, Scott. He's close to completing the change. We have to kill him. There's no other way." Derek tried to keep himself calm as he ripped the bag open, breaking the zipper on it.

"You can't kill him! Not after all that we've done to try and save him!"

"No! It's only part of Gerard's plan! Don't you see!? We're just pawns! He needs Jackson to survive so he can just get bigger and more powerful!" Derek's claws shot out of his fingers but Argent only shook his head.

"My father would never do that. He wouldn't let a rabid dog live. He wouldn't—" Chris was stumbling over his words. There was no way that was true. His father couldn't have become part of the world which he had spent the entirety of his life hunting. Of his children's lives hunting. _Of his grandchildren's lives hunting._

"Of course not!" Everybody in the room froze. Gerard walked into the light to make sure that the words that were about to come out of his mouth could be clearly seen and heard. "Something that rabid and disgusting...something that apt to kill and manipulate...deserves to die."

But he wasn't talking about the kanima.

Derek lifted his arm to strike Jackson only to be caught off guard by the kanima's claws ripping through the flesh of his chest, lifting him up into the air and throwing him into the other side of the warehouse. "You have to run," Isaac could feel the air escaping his chest as his voice cracked, "you have to."

"I'm not leaving you. I'm not leaving them." There was no key for him to break off this time. There was no way to make her leave or to keep her safe and he knew it. "We aren't going through this again." He was running out of time to protect her. He'd have to shift soon. He'd have to fight. There was no way he could fight Jackson off and save Carmen at the same time.

"You've done better than I expected, Scott." Gerard chuckled as he paced around the room. "You're such a valiant friend, bringing Jackson to Derek so that you could save him. In doing that, you brought Derek to me. Not to mention a member of his pack. I suppose the alpha human will just have to be the bow on wonderful present you've given me, wouldn't you say?"

Before he could reply, Scott's reflexes kicked in and he dodged an arrow as it whistled by his face. And right into Isaac's shoulder.

Carmen tried her best to catch him as he hit the floor, but it was no use. She couldn't lift him up by herself. Not again. She felt like somebody had deflated both of her lungs. She felt like she was suffocating. All she could hear were his grunts of anguish, trying to push himself through the pain. If Scott didn't help her pull him away she didn't know what would have happened. "What do I do, what do I do, what do I do!?" She screamed hysterically, clutching onto Scott's hand.

"Push him. While I take the arrow out. He'll start healing." He grit his teeth at her. She took in a deep breath and placed her hands on Isaac's face, concentrating on white noise to help her to give him the feeling of numbness. It flooded over him like a tidal wave. One moment he was in burning pain and the next moment he felt nothing. She shut her eyes tightly as Scott pulled the bolt out of his chest, throwing it aside. They lifted him to his feet just as the kanima pushed Argent into the room.

"Go," Isaac struggled to regain his breath, latching onto Carmen. "Just go hide, please..." He pleaded at her with his crystal blue eyes. She watched as they turned to gold to begin his shift.

"He's right; you have to go. Jackson will kill you. And you can't heal." Scott couldn't risk having another person he cared about hurt by the kanima. It was time for him to finish this.

She nodded at both of them and ran behind a stack of cardboard boxes and plastic crates just as their shifts finished and the kanima made a run at them. "He's a good fighter, you know. Isaac. Still needs a lot of work, but he's fairly decent." She heard a voice next to her and she gasped in and turned to see Peter Hale standing barely a foot away. The look on his face was strangely charming, but she knew that no good could come out of that kind of permanent expression. "Derek told me about how he came across Isaac. It's devastating when a young person has to come under circumstances like that to turn to taking the bite." He shook his head shamefully.

"I didn't take the bite because I didn't need the bite." She wasn't going to be falling for any of his tricks. She was a lot smarter than he thought she was. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm pretty set with the supernatural." She cringed as she watched Scott get thrown into a sheet of metal against the wall.

"But do you know what you're capable of with your ability? Didn't your parents ever show you?" There was nothing that intrigued Peter Hale more than a work in progress. And she was the ultimate project.

"My parents concentrated more time on my brother than they did on me." She was used to hearing that pattern of words come out of her mouth. It didn't even bother her anymore.

"Is he like you?" His blue eyes sparkled with the thought of coming across two pathokinetics.

"No." She really hated talking to him about such personal things but she couldn't help it. "He's...he's a prodigy. He's different. He's just better. My parents paid more attention to him. He's an incredible surgeon. He's saved so many lives..." _Her brother the genius. Her brother the prodigy. Her brother the god. _

"You're right. He's nothing like you. You're better." He wondered what kind of lies she had been told that made her so cruelly misinformed.

She froze. It was the first time anybody had ever told her that. And it was the first time she had ever believed it.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Kids With Guns" by Gorillaz. _

**Omg I can't believe I'm so close to the end of this fic aaaahhhhhh! Coming from me (a person who finds it really incredibly difficult to finish any sort of writing project) I really am proud of myself for committing to a fic for once. And I didn't even prepare for writing it either. Whenever I post a chapter it's because I literally just finished writing it without proofreading or rethinking anything haha. Mostly everything I write is very stream-of-consciousness. I just thought "you should write an Isaac fic" when I started watching and Teen Wolf and this came along. Thanks so much for your support, guys!**


	23. Heavy in Your Arms

**Chapter 22**

_"I was a heavy heart to carry, my beloved was weighed down. My arms around his neck, my fingers laced a crown."_

Peter's words rang clearly in Carmen's ears, but nowhere near as clearly as Isaac's scream of pain as the knives Allison wielded slashed through his skin. He dropped to his knees and the blood seeped out of his open wounds and onto the concrete floor. He begged his body to let him stand, but he was too weak to even move. It was like her heart stopped beating and all she could hear around her was white noise. She ran towards him and propped him up so she could look at his cuts.

"I'm healing, I'm healing..." He mumbled in a daze, rocking his head from side to side. He had shifted back to his human form and his skin was losing so much color he looked like he was going to vomit. He had slashes on his stomach that were oozing dark blood and she had her hands on them to see if putting pressure on his wounds would help them heal any faster. Every breath he took seemed to be a chore, and he was exhausted. "You're getting blood all over you." She could barely make out the words in his sentence, but the amount of concern he had was almost annoying.

"Shut up." She said softly, taking her hands off his chest every once in a while to check if things were improving. "You're healing, but it's slow." She dried some of the blood off her hands by using his hoodie and even though she felt like he was going to pass out any minute he still found some time to frown at her.

"I got stabbed. You know, a lot. So I'm sorry if my superhuman healing isn't kicking in fast enough." Her natural instinct would have been to elbow him in the stomach for saying something sarcastic like that but in this situation that obligation was rendered moot. "Can't you just push me? It's killing me..." He cringed as she pressed down harder to apply more pressure.

"I can't concentrate on both." She couldn't even think straight. The only thing she could think about was making sure that he was healed. If she pushed him she wouldn't be able to apply as much pressure on the wounds and getting him to stop bleeding was the most human instinct she could process right now. He reached up and wrapped his hand around her forearm, digging his fingernails into her skin.

"I'll heal, please...just do _something..._" He begged, not being able to take the pain any longer. It was tearing through his body like a wildfire. Then suddenly—he felt nothing. It was almost like an out-of-body experience because everything had changed so much. He gasped in and looked down at his chest where the wounds were healing quicker than before but he couldn't feel a thing. He looked up at her and she was gripping onto his hand, concentrating her thoughts on relieving his agony. Tears were dripping from underneath her closed eyes, sticking to her dark brown eyelashes.

"ALLISON!" Scott's voice broke Carmen's concentration and she looked up to see Allison's feet hanging at least a foot off the ground with the kanima's hand wrapped around her neck. She scrambled upwards and pulled Isaac with her, holding onto him as tightly as she could.

"What are you doing?" Allison asked Gerard as she gasped for air. The kanima's scaly hand was pressed against her throat and she couldn't breathe.

"He's doing what he came here to do." Scott couldn't believe how blissfully unaware she was of Gerard's entire scheme. She had been completely brainwashed.

"Then you know?" This had piqued Gerard's interest. Scott had impressed him far more than he'd anticipated.

"You're bleeding again," Carmen mumbled, noticing the fresh blood flowing onto her fingertips. He shook his head and stopped her from putting pressure on it. He could not have cared any less about losing blood right now.

"He's dying..." The words left Isaac's mouth as everything started to click into place for him. He could smell the death and decay in the air. There was no other reason for Gerard to become the kanima's master. He wouldn't have become part of the supernatural unless his life had depended on it. The way that Gerard turned to look at him sent chills through his body and if he wasn't so weak he could have taken the opportunity to rip his throat out.

"I am. I have been since I got here." He paced around the room, moving his silver pill case around in his hand. "But sadly science doesn't have a cure for cancer. But the supernatural does." His eyes glistened as he locked eyes with Derek, who seemed to know exactly what was going on. The kanima tightened its grip around Allison's fragile neck and she was starting to lose consciousness.

"You're a monster!" Chris's voice cracked as he looked at his own father with disgust written all over his face. He couldn't let his only child die. He'd never be able to live with himself. He'd die. "You'd kill her too?" His voice cracked as he tried to bite back his tears.

_"I'd kill my own son."_

Those words smacked Isaac like a sack of bricks. He knew that feeling. He knew it too well. He bit so far down on his lip that he felt the metallic taste of blood in his mouth, sliding over his teeth and dipping into the back of his throat. Everybody said that memories were just that and they couldn't hurt you. But he knew better than that.

He looked up and saw Scott shifting back into human form, looking at Derek with regret written all over his face. He swallowed the lump in his throat and picked Derek up by the scruff of his neck, dragging him to Gerard. It was the only way he could get Allison back. It was the only way for him to be with her.

Gerard screamed as Derek's teeth bit through his flesh.

He held his arm up triumphantly as he displayed his newfound glory to everyone in the room. "He's rejecting it..." Carmen said breathlessly as the same black that dripped from Jackson's nose on her first day of school dripped from the marks in Gerard's arm. It was the reason why she could control him better than she could control Scott. "...he's rejecting the bite." She watched as he fell to the ground with black spurting from everywhere it could find in his body, culminating in what looked like a fountain of ink pouring from his mouth.

"KILL THEM! KILL THEM ALL!" He yelled to Jackson, collapsing to the ground.

Jackson let go of Allison's throat and turned his head to look at Scott, but Allison elbowed his face and incapacitated him to buy Stiles and Lydia enough time to come crashing through the warehouse in the Jeep. "That brilliant son of a bitch." For the first time in days a smile covered Carmen's face as she looked at Stiles on the driver's side of his car. Lydia ran out of the car in front of Jackson and held up a small metal key in front of his eyes.

As he stared at the key and back to her the features of the kanima began to melt away. The tail, the scales, the yellow eyes...it was leaving him and he was becoming Jackson again. But Derek and Peter saw this as nothing more than a chance, and everybody in the room knew that besides Lydia.

"I can't..." Carmen gnawed down on her lip and hid her eyes in Isaac's shoulder as Peter and Derek pierced Jackson's skin with their claws. He nodded and kissed the top of her head, pulling the both of them up as he went to go stand with the others.

Jackson and Lydia's connection was more powerful than either of them would have ever let on to anybody. It was so hard to admit that you loved somebody when all you cared about was vicious pride and pretending to be something that you weren't. Lydia sobbed and cradled Jackson's head in her hands as she could feel the life slipping away from his body. She had spent so much time trying to tell herself that he wasn't worth it and that he meant nothing to her when all he meant to her was the world.

Scott entwined his fingers with Allison's and Isaac did the same with Carmen. They had each other and Lydia had nobody. She gently laid his head down on the concrete and stood to her feet, knowing that she had to leave Jackson even though no part of her wanted to do it. She took in a deep breath and wiped her eyes, not wanting to show anybody that there was a sign of weakness in her. But she was crumbling. And no amount of makeup would be able to hide that.

Then suddenly the sound of scraping could be heard.

Scott and Isaac flicked their heads to Jackson's body and saw his claws scraping against the concrete as his fingers began to flex. His eyes shot open and they were the brightest electric blue that anybody had seen. Everybody could only watch wide-eyed as he rose to his feet in front of the Jeep's piercing headlights. At once Lydia turned around and threw her arms around him like she was never going to let go. And the only person Carmen could look at was Stiles.

The crushing agony and defeat in his face was like no other she had seen before. His face was bruised and cut, but it wasn't like those mattered. Lydia was the only thing that mattered to him and now she was slipping away. Again.

_"You want to be with him more than anything in the world right now, and I know that because I know the exact same feeling."_

Her heart shattered into a million pieces as she watched one of her closest friends experience a gut-wrenching feeling that she wouldn't have been able to get over without him. He helped everybody else but nobody ever helped him. "Stiles..." She reached out and tried to touch his arm but he yanked it away, shaking his head.

"I...um, I'm fine. I'm fine. Don't worry about me." He nodded, looking up at how Isaac had his arm so protectively wrapped around her shoulders. He longed to be able to feel like that. He couldn't help the envy he felt in the pit of his stomach for how good it must have felt to be able to protect somebody that you loved. How good it must have felt so know that the person you loved felt the same way about you.

"Stiles, please." She felt the obligation to somehow repay him for what he had done. Without him she wouldn't be with Isaac. She would have never spoken to him again and it would have ripped her apart from the inside out. She could have been miserable.

"Carm, I said I was fine!" He snapped, making her retract her hand. He looked at her in apology but he was just too exhausted to vocalize it. He was to exhausted to do anything but want to crawl into a hole and die. Everything he had invested in Lydia was disintegrating and he had no choice but to build it back up again, because that's what you do for the people you truly love.

It was what gave Scott the strength to love Allison after all she had done. After she had been so brainwashed by Gerard. After she had been absorbed with the intent to kill.

It was what gave Carmen the strength to love Isaac even though he had been so selfish with her. After she told him that she hated him because she was so angry that she couldn't see straight.

The people who love choose to build back up because they believe in something for the future—something that's worth the risk.

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Heavy in Your Arms" by Florence + the Machine. _

**Ahhhh I'm sorry this is really short! I just wanted to get an update out there for everybody who had been waiting on one and I wanted to get one up before the episode tonight too so I hope you guys had a good time reading this!**


	24. Say It Ain't So

_Author's Note: Guysguysguysguysguys this is the last chapter. Just thought I'd give you a head's up so you won't have a total bomb dropped on you. I'll explain what's going on with the sequel at the end. I'll let you read now haha. _

**Chapter 23**

_"Say it ain't so, your drug is a heart-breaker. Say it ain't so, my love is a life-taker. I can't confront you, I never could do that might which hurt you."_

"Derek says there's a whole pack of them, you know. Of Alphas." Isaac toyed lazily with Carmen's strawberry blonde hair, trying to see if he could learn how to braid it. He poked his tongue into his cheek and knit his brow together, wrapping two locks around each other. That definitely wasn't how she braided her hair.

"Is that why you came over here? To tell me that I'm going be suffering impending doom?" She rolled her eyes, leaning backwards onto his chest. He pouted because now he was severely restricted from honing his newfound hair-braiding talents but he got over himself. "Because I can handle myself." She poked the spot in his cheek where she could see his tongue moving. He gave her a cheeky smile and rubbed his hand up and down her arm.

"Yeah, yeah I'm aware." He chuckled, leaning his head down to kiss her cheek. At the last second she turned her mouth and leaned upwards, pushing her lips against his. He laughed and pulled away, cocking one of his eyebrows up. "Somebody's a little eager." He murmured, tucking a few stray wisps of her hair behind her ear.

"It was your idea." She turned herself around so that she was kneeling in between his legs and she placed her hands on his chest, pushing him back into the pillows on the bed. He was definitely okay with that happening. "And like I said, my brother is on-call until late tonight." She grabbed a handful of his thick hair and pulled his mouth onto hers, feeling his hands slide down her back.

He groaned when he felt her soft hands taking up the hem of his shirt, dragging her fingertips past his lean torso. He fumbled in the pocket of his jeans as he felt her tongue slide into his mouth, and he pulled a condom out and put it on the nightstand. "Seriously, though...I mean, I just suggested it." She pulled his shirt up over his head and threw it across the room, clearly not caring about what he had to say. "Because if you want to back out, I won't—"

"Listen, you idiot." She wagged her index finger in his face and traced it along his angular cheekbones, making his skin flush. "The kanima's gone and now the Alpha pack is coming. Do you see what I'm getting at, Isaac?" He nodded weakly and she traced her fingers in circles on the center of his bare chest, right where his heart was beating absolutely out of control.

He'd be lying if he said that he hadn't been waiting for this day for a long time. He just thought he'd have to ease her into it instead of her being the one to pounce on him. He just guessed that they had been together long enough for her to not be uncomfortable talking about having sex. She definitely wasn't being uncomfortable about anything now. He wet his lips with his tongue and hungrily went at her lips, stifling her devious laugh. His hands moved up her back like they had done the week before his first full moon, but this time there was no way he was getting stopped. He quickly unhooked her bra like he had done it a million times, but this was only his first.

He gripped her waist and growled as he flipped her over, pushing her body into the mattress as he only kissed her harder. She lifted her arms above her head and he took this as his cue to yank her shirt and her bra off over her head in a single movement. She gasped in as his hands slowly and torturously moved up her body until they finally rested on her breasts, making her crane her body up towards his touch. "Isaac..." She moaned against his lips, pulling at the back of his neck to make him push his tongue farther into her mouth. "I love you." Wherever her skin felt his touch it was like somebody was setting fire to her body in the most beautiful way possible.

The aggressiveness in his kisses and actions stopped once those words escaped her, but the intensity and passion was still there. "I love you too." He smiled faintly, placing his hand on her cheek.

_"Hey...did you, um...just between you and me of course, did you have sex with Isaac or something?"_

_"Of course I didn't have sex with him, you idiot!"_

Carmen smiled to herself as she remembered that exchange with Stiles that seemed like it had been years ago. She'd make sure to give him an update.

* * *

"I've been talking to Peter a lot lately," She turned her head over her shoulder to look at a sleepy-eyed but completely satisfied Isaac. That was probably the last thing he wanted to hear right now. "He knows a lot about about me. And my ability. Or just alpha humans in general." He had his arm lying over her and she absentmindedly traced her finger over the back of his palm, lulling him into a daze.

"I thought I told you to stay away from him." He mumbled into her bare shoulder, enjoying the way he could smell his scent mixed with hers when he breathed in. She was his now.

"And Scott told me to stay away from you." She replied with a gentle laugh, rolling her eyes. He'd never stop being so annoyingly protective. There wasn't a chance in this world that it would ever happen.

"But Scott likes me now." She knew he was pouting even though she couldn't see his face.

"So maybe one day you'll like Peter." It was so funny to her that she barely even trusted Peter yet he was growing on her as quite possibly the strangest father figure in the world. He was like a mentor to her. He'd teach her to become more powerful. He'd teach her to become fully aware of what her purpose in this world was. He knew so much and she knew so little it was like she'd be forced to learn from him even if she didn't want to.

"Not likely." He sighed, just wanting to fall asleep. He didn't know that losing his virginity would have made him want to sleep for twenty years, especially if he was a werewolf.

"And he found somebody who knew my parents, too. She's an alpha human. Not like me or Troy, but the things she can do...they're incredible." She laughed in disbelief, remembering how terribly uncomfortable she had been in her first meeting with Danielle. Peter had said that he'd "purely by chance" come across somebody who had known her parents. Somebody who had gone into hiding before the hunters found out that werewolves weren't the only things around to go after. Carmen had gone completely on the notion that she trusted Peter enough to not kill her and dump her body into the Pacific Ocean, and it had been totally worth it.

There had been an alpha human group that her parents had been apart of before they got married. It disbanded once the hunters started coming after members, but there were still loyalties and debts owed. Danielle took it upon herself to absolve her debt by giving Carmen the chance to realize her potential. "The things that _you _can do are incredible." Isaac pressed his body farther into hers, snapping her out of reminiscing and making her laugh. "I really didn't know you were that flexible."

"There's a lot of things you don't know about me." She replied quietly, making him nod slowly. She was right, but he always assumed that they'd have plenty of time to talk about things. "And Danielle and Peter...they know more about me than I know about myself."

"Does Derek know about this?" He turned her body over so that she was facing him. He folded his arm at the elbow and rested his head on his hand while he leaned over her and started playing with her hair.

"Why should he know? It's none of his business." She stated plainly, clearly confused as to why he was asking such a weird question.

"And Scott and Stiles? Do they know?"

"Just you." She assured him, making him smile. "Only you."

"You know that I still don't trust Peter, right? Because if Derek really knew about this then he'd—" She put her finger on his lips to shush him and he couldn't stop smiling at her.

"I'm not a werewolf, and I don't plan on becoming one anytime soon." She ran her fingers up and down his bicep, sending goosebumps over the surface of his skin. "Whatever tricks Derek is used to seeing him pull won't work on me. I'm a lot more clever than everybody seems to take me for." And meeting with Danielle was helping her to prove people wrong. There were so many things she'd never realized about her own strength that she was learning with every week that it was almost too much for her to handle.

"I know how clever you are." He moved his fingers from her hair to her neck where he traced his fingers over the pulse point in her throat. "That doesn't mean I'm not going to tell you to be careful." Derek would never tell him exactly what had happened with Peter, and Isaac didn't plan on asking him about it either. There were some things in his Alpha's past that were better left unsaid.

"I know how to be careful, Isaac. You worry way too much."

"But you know I have to."

"And it's only gotten severely annoying on a few occasions." He smirked when she said that. He knew just how bothersome his protective nature could be but he didn't care. It kept her safe and that was what mattered to him. "But I'm learning things about my parents and my family and who I am. They're important. If the Alpha pack really is coming—"

"They actually are coming, it's a fact." He corrected her. He wasn't even supposed to tell anybody about it, but he figured that she could keep a secret.

"Well when they come, I think you're going to need me. You're going to need an improved me." This wasn't just her training herself on a whim or because she wanted it as a hobby. She was doing it to evolve herself. To eat and not get eaten.

"He told you that we were looking for them, didn't he?" Of course Peter had just let "slip". And his little slip would have driven her into danger. She nodded and didn't miss the frustration in his face. His jaw tightened and his lips spread into a thin line. "And about Erica and Boyd too?" She nodded again and he got a disgusting feeling in his stomach. He was going to have to tell her.

"I figured that since you'd be busy looking for them...that I'd just go out and stay with Danielle in the city, you know? Training." She wasn't upset with him, and that was confusing. He thought she'd be furious. "Jackson left for London. Allison's going to France with her dad..." It seemed like everybody was leaving so it could only seem natural to her to take some time off.

"This is a very subtle way of breaking up with me." He said quietly, caressing her cheek with his thumb. Maybe he didn't care so much because he was hanging onto the afterglow of what had just happened. Or maybe he didn't care because he knew that to protect her he'd have to let go for a little bit.

"We aren't breaking up." She put her hand on his, making sure that he was fully aware of what she just said. "Things are going to be hard and we'll have to adapt. We aren't breaking up. We're just...going with the flow." After all that had happened between them they both thought that it would be difficult but they knew that they would still be together. "After the summer things will be different. And I think we both know that." Giving into change was hard for everybody, but with the new danger coming it seemed like change would be the only thing they could embrace. Change seemed like the only sure thing in the world.

"So you're not gonna get some supermodel boyfriend and forget all about me?" He raised one of his eyebrows, making her burst out laughing. Now he was slightly embarrassed to have asked it in the first place. "It was just a question."

"No, I'm not gonna get a supermodel boyfriend and forget all about you. I told you, we aren't breaking up." She studied his face intently, knowing that he still had some reservations about the idea. His jaw was set and his eyes swam in pools of deep thought. His face was so angular and sharp, with his hard-lined jaw and his high cheekbones. No wonder he always looked like he was brooding. But no matter how severe his face looked, there was just something about it that screamed innocence. That screamed loving, kindness, and a fierce nature to protect. Or maybe that was just to her.

"But Carmen, you know that's what most people say when they're breaking up with somebody."

"But Isaac, you know that I'm not most people."

"I love you."

"I love you too."

"Okay."

"Okay."

* * *

_This chapter's song was "Say It Ain't So" by Weezer. _

**ALRIGHTY. SO THIS IS DONE. THIS IS OFFICIALLY DONE. **

**BUT NEVER FEAR, THERE'S A SEQUEL IN THE AIR. Obviously, because how am I supposed to totally ignore Season 3? I'll post in here when I put it up so you guys will know when it happens. Or you could go on my profile and follow me idk do it however you want to do it haha. But anyways, I have absolutely loved writing this story (as you can see, because it only took me ten days to write the entire thing) and I'm excited to keep going at it. Thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed/followed/favorited. It means the world. You guys are fantastic. :)**


	25. Author's Note About the Sequel

**AYOOOOOOO I JUST FINISHED WRITING THE PROLOGUE TO THE SEQUEL. **

**It's called "The Flowers" so you guys can go ahead and check it out! This story is officially finished and somehow I thought I'd never say that because I have such a hard time finishing up projects but this one was really worth it! I really, really love how much support y'all have given me and it means the world that you like what really is just a stream of consciousness for me. Any ideas/things you'd like to see happen or developed in the sequel are encouraged and you can drop me a review either on this story or over on the sequel.**

**lovelovelovelovelove everybody, **

**shawnkempredemption**


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